Extremely unreliable blood oxygen level feature on Galaxy Watch 3

[Niknak82]

I'm not entirely sure if this feature is meant as a gimmick or not to be honest. Apparently it can be quite accurate but 9 times out of 10 it will simply fail and tell you that your watch needs to be tighter and you need to sit still. I mean the length of the error message itself is clear that Samsung knows this feature hardly works imo.

Disappointing to be honest, reminds me of old Nokia phones. I would rather not have the feature if it rarely works. Just wondering how reliable the blood pressure readings will be when that's released.

Anyone else noticing unreliable readings?

[Shnookerdookies]

maybe you not wearing it correct like it says
I've took quite a few and not 1 has failed

[zEeTv]

works for me 1to 3 off from my finger reader did have issues at first not used to having a watch on so tight.. but for the first few days I had to fiddle with the positions.. also you get better results if you don't move or talk.

[Niknak82]

lmao, maybe I'm not wearing the watch correctly? yeah okay, more likely the feature just doesn't work properly. and that's confirmed by zEeTv saying that the watch has to be on super tight. yes I can eventually get it to work by keep testing,my point is, it's extremely unreliable.

and btw, you might want to pick another name if you want to be taken seriously.

[Niknak82]

yeah I got it to work several times when the watch is super tight, cleaned sensors etc, still I'm only getting like at best 1 in 5 readings. I'm certainly not going to permanently wear the watch tightly as I prefer blood flow to my hand, which goes strengthen my point more, it's poorly designed. The sitting still etc is fair enough, that's not difficult.

I don't think it's a worthy feature on what is arguably the best smart watch available.

[zEeTv]

just to update.. replaced the leather strap with a rubber/plastic one.. much more comfortable and better reading.

[Niknak82]

nice, I'll give that a try and see how it goes. thanks.

[MikeLT]

I have just posted this reply on my experience to another poster with a similar question. It seems my experience is similar to yours.  Let me know if you get better results with a rubber strap please, although if that is a pre-requisite for it working then it would be clearly stated by Samsung I would have thought.

The function is extremely sensitive to movement and requires you to stay incredibly still. I have often given up without achieving a reading. Also, when it seems to be in a more co-operative mood, the reading provided leads me to question the accuracy . I have had oxygen levels of 88% one minute and (on checking!) 95% the next. One day the watch gave a reading of 81% and the phone at the same time (from the index finger on the other hand) gave a reading of 94%. One of them is wrong, and I suspect the Watch 3. Quite honestly I don't bother any more as it seems so arbitrary.

[Niknak82]

So after trying a new strap, my first reading was great, but it was purely coincidental as it's been just as unreliable ever since.

Thing is, I'm not a fan of Apple, but I bet the blood oxygen check works on their new watch, which is sad to say the least how Samsung quite happily put junk out there. if it doesn't work as advertised, it shouldn't be there until it does.

This is my third Samsung smart watch, S2, Galaxy Watch 1 and 3, and each one has had issues that Samsung have either introduced half way through or just not worked from the start. With the first Galaxy Watch the inactivity notifications stopped working for months, it took lots of hounding to get them to fix it, which they did to be fair, but not proactively.

I could write a whole list if bugs for them as I'm sure we all could but they won't listen. sad but true.

[Niknak82]

Also, just whilst I'm moaning.

I see a lot of people say that these things are unavoidable and that Samsung aren't perfect.  Well those people know nothing about software development, and that is the problem here.

At no point, should Samsung be pushing live, auto-updates to peoples £400~ watches that stops them working.  There are well defined methods to prevent this kind of thing from happening.  Take Windows for example, you have different branches of updates you can subscribe to, if you want bleeding edge stuff that regularly breaks, that's your call, but by default you should get the stable branch, that's not only had automated unit tests run against it, but also weeks if not months of real world testing, done by real humans against it.

Thing is, everyone wants everything today, with no delays, and if Samsung implemented something like the above, they could make both camps of people happy, people who like their nice expensive watch to work as advertised *all* of the time, and those that want it doing crazy new things every other week.

Samsung, please take note.  In the EU, if a device is not fit for purpose, i.e. does not work as advertised, without any fault of the user, within the first 3 years you can get it refunded, by law.  My watch isn't a play ground for your awful developers.