Holy crap, I just noticed that most of the latest Fitbit models (including mine) have a built-in pulse oximeter!
This would presumably make it even easier to quickly map outbreaks at the population level, in the way discussed in the Lancet article (leaving aside privacy issues).
At the individual level, unfortunately Fitbit won’t give me disaggregated data or a percentage reading. It only shows a graph of ‘high’ and ‘low’ variations in blood oxygen overnight, which I have no idea how to interpret. I believe this is due to FDA restrictions.
here’s an example (not mine):
EDIT: can’t figure out how to make image non-obnoxiously enormous, here’s a link instead.
Does anyone know:
a) how accurate is a Fitbit pulse oximeter likely to be, compared to a dedicated device?
b) is there a way to access the data directly, and get a percentage reading?
c) is the ‘high’ and ‘low’ variations overnight in any way useful?
It might very well be that they can measure the variations with higher accuracy then they can measure the percentage because there are constant factors like skin color that affect the percentage but that can be factored out when comparing daily values. I guess that for doing self diagnosis you want to know how your values derivate from normal.
Holy crap, I just noticed that most of the latest Fitbit models (including mine) have a built-in pulse oximeter!
This would presumably make it even easier to quickly map outbreaks at the population level, in the way discussed in the Lancet article (leaving aside privacy issues).
At the individual level, unfortunately Fitbit won’t give me disaggregated data or a percentage reading. It only shows a graph of ‘high’ and ‘low’ variations in blood oxygen overnight, which I have no idea how to interpret. I believe this is due to FDA restrictions.
here’s an example (not mine):
EDIT: can’t figure out how to make image non-obnoxiously enormous, here’s a link instead.
Does anyone know:
a) how accurate is a Fitbit pulse oximeter likely to be, compared to a dedicated device?
b) is there a way to access the data directly, and get a percentage reading?
c) is the ‘high’ and ‘low’ variations overnight in any way useful?
It might very well be that they can measure the variations with higher accuracy then they can measure the percentage because there are constant factors like skin color that affect the percentage but that can be factored out when comparing daily values. I guess that for doing self diagnosis you want to know how your values derivate from normal.