Wear OS watches might soon have an edge when it comes to blood oxygen

Last week, medical device maker Masimo announced new deals with Google and Qualcomm to bring its biosensing tech to Wear OS smartwatches. That’s pretty inside baseball for the wearable industry, but it takes an interesting turn when you realize Masimo is also the reason why the new Apple Watch Series 10 doesn’t have blood oxygen features in the US.

From the outside, it sort of looks like the company battling Apple over blood oxygen is now setting the terms for how that exact tech is used by Apple’s smartwatch rivals. Securing the bag, so to speak, against other alleged patent infringement.

Masimo CEO Joe Kiani says that’s not exactly how he sees it. As part of the deals, Masimo is creating a reference platform where its tech is…

Continue reading…