Who would have thought that the proper working of Apple’s newest product, the Apple Watch, will depend on if you have tattoo or not? A few days back, several reports had surfaced of tattooed Apple Watch owners facing trouble with their new purchase. Just like the Bendgate fiasco, it sounded like a tech glitch, which was made to sound bigger than it actually was. However, Apple has posted on its official blog that users sporting tattoos may face difficulty in operating the smart watch’s key feature – the heart-rate monitor.
Apple said the watch works on a technology called photoplethysmography that bombards the wearer’s skin with green LED and infrared light in order to follow the blood flow between heart pumps.
The official Apple support page reads:
Permanent or temporary changes to your skin, such as some tattoos, can also impact heart rate sensor performance. The ink, pattern, and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings.
The only solution Apple has to offer for now is that by connecting the Apple Watch wirelessly to external heart rate monitors via Bluetooth, the wearable can bypass the sensor reading from the tattooed area.
The tattoo problem is not only being faced by Apple Watch users. Similar fitness wearables that use the same technology, have been reported to malfunction a little when worn on a tattooed hand.
Leave a Reply