Apple Watch users in the United States are finally seeing Blood Oxygen readings return after nearly a year-long absence. Apple was forced to disable the feature on new Apple Watch hardware sold in the US following a patent dispute with medical technology company Masimo.
The fix, released across this week and last, is a practical solution that works well, especially in helping Apple Watch remain competitive with the health and fitness focused Whoop product.
With the release of iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1 as well as iOS 26 beta 7 and watchOS 26 beta 7, Apple has introduced a redesigned version of Blood Oxygen monitoring. Instead of processing data entirely on the watch, sensor readings are gathered by Apple Watch and then processed by the paired iPhone. Results are displayed in the Health app on iPhone rather than directly on the Watch.
This “redesign” is only needed in the United States, and only for some Apple Watch Series 9 models sold after a certain date, as well as all Apple Watch Series 10 and Ultra 2 models.
It’s not as seamless as the original on-device approach, but it restores an important metric that many Apple Watch owners previously lost.
Whoop worked when Apple Watch couldn’t
When Apple Watch couldn’t track blood oxygen, Whoop became my fallback. The strap’s health insights are strong, and it remains a good option if you prefer wearing an analog watch or no screen at all on your wrist. Its sleep tracking and recovery insights are particularly strong, and in my experience, Whoop still outperforms Apple in this area. Apple may have more planned for sleep tracking analysis in the future.
Anyway, now that Apple Watch is once again logging SpO2 data automatically, the balance shifts. My first new result appeared in the Health app before I even triggered a manual reading, showing that Apple’s redesigned method continues to work passively in the background.
Beyond testing to make sure it works, there’s basically no scenario where I think to manually check my SpO2 reading. Background readings are key.
Apple Watch still has more utility
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