The Apple Watch ECG feature is now here. This is what you need to know

The tech could be life-saving, complicating, or both.

 The Apple Watch is evolving into a legitimate medical device

The smartwatch's new ECG function brings fitness trackers into real medical care.delete

 What is atrial fibrillation, and why is your watch telling you about it?

We explain why Apple's decided to go after a condition you may never have heard of.

 Why heart-monitoring apps on latest Apple Watch make some physicians nervous

Another important factor in considering the usefulness of the collected data is that Apple Watch wearers tend not to be the same population of people concerned about AFib. The former tend to be young, healthy, and affluent, meaning it’s unlikely that consumers will be buying the device strictly for its ECG capabilities, Vox said.

A look at the Apple Watch’s ECG, from someone who needs it

t will take several months of monitoring and a few more incidents of odd heart behavior before I'll get the same sense of confidence I have in my existing routine. But if the first results are anything to go on, Apple has done a fine job with this software.

Apple Watch doesn’t detect AFib above 120bpm; fails 30-60% of time – studies

Apple acknowledged in its FDA submission that the Apple Watch cannot detect AFib when the heart-rate is above 120 beats per minute, and a report today suggests this means it may fail to detect the condition in anywhere between 30% and 60% of cases. Apple has always been careful to stress the limitations of the Watch’s ability to detect AFib. However, it says that the inability of the Watch to detect AFib when the user’s heart-rate is above 120bpm is a very significant limitation.

Apple Watch for Heart Health: A Cardiologist's Word of Caution

As Apple announced the new heart health features in their latest Apple Watch, two phrases caught my attention: “Game-changing” and “lifesaving.” One of these phrases may be true (but not as it was intended). And the other should not be used at all – at least not yet.

Apple's Heart Study Is the Biggest Ever, But With a Catch

Now, not for the first time, Apple's attention to user experience has been rewarded: According to a paper outlining the study's design in this week's issue of the American Heart Journal, Apple and Stanford have managed to enroll a staggering 419,093 participants. That makes it the largest screening study on atrial fibrillation ever performed.

Apple’s Newest Watch Features Will Transform Heart Health

Some experts say the Apple Watch's arrhythmia notifications and ECG have enormous potential to benefit public health. But those same experts also express caution and concern. "Apple has essentially gotten out ahead of where medicine is," says Greg Marcus, a cardiac electrophysiologist and the chief of cardiology research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Beware the hype over the Apple Watch heart app. The device could do more harm than good

Even if the Apple Watch does work correctly, it is by no means clear it will generate benefits to the public’s health. Most episodes of a-fib are not harmful. There has been an enormous amount of research on people with a-fib who enter the health care system through conventional means — most often by going to a doctor about their symptoms or by having the problem diagnosed during a physical examination. The medical community has a fairly good idea about which of these patients are most likely to benefit from further treatment, although I must acknowledge that there is some controversy even here.

Can a smart watch save you from a stroke?

Join an ambitious study to detect the most common heart arrhythmia using your smart watch. Contribute your data and save lives.

Can a Smartwatch Save Your Life?

The advent of wearable devices that monitor our heart rhythms both excites and worries doctors.

Here’s the data behind the new Apple Watch EKG app

When the new Apple Watch heart monitoring app can get a reading, it can accurately detect that a person has an irregular heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation 99 percent of the time, according to a study of the new device that Apple submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.

How accurate is the Apple Watch's heart rate monitor for detecting AFib? It can't replace medical-grade devices

If you're truly concerned about accurate heart rate measurements, you should definitely look into medical-grade options instead of relying solely on a smartwatch.

Johnson & Johnson to Use Apple Watch App for Heart-Health Study

Aim is to detect the irregular heart rhythms of people living with atrial fibrillation before something life-threatening happens.

Johnson & Johnson to Use Apple Watch App for Heart-Health Study

Aim is to detect the irregular heart rhythms of people living with atrial fibrillation before something life-threatening happens.

Should Your Watch Monitor Your Heart?

Apple’s new watch can screen for heart problems. But doctors are increasingly worried about the dangers of testing healthy people for disease.

That New Apple Watch EKG Feature? There Are More Downs Than Ups

The heart monitor should not be considered a medical device and reflects wider problems with health screens.

The Apple Watch 4 is an iffy atrial fibrillation detector in those under age 55

Apple Watch’s positive predictive value is just 19.6 percent. That means in this group — which constitutes more than 90 percent of users of wearable devices like the Apple Watch — the app incorrectly diagnoses atrial fibrillation 79.4 percent of the time.

The first smartphone app to detect actual heart attacks probably won’t be Apple’s

One company is trying to find a way to diagnose severe heart attacks before patients even arrive at the hospital. Preliminary results presented at the 2018 American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Chicago this weekend show that a smartphone app developed by the Silicon Valley-based startup AliveCor may be able to identify heart attacks at home. Specifically, it could detect a type of heart attack caused by complete blockage of an artery—referred to medically as an ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)—almost as effectively as an in-hospital electrocardiogram (ECG).

The New ECG Apple Watch Could Do More Harm Than Good

People with atrial fibrillation, which the CDC estimates affects between 2.7 and 6.1 million Americans, could likely benefit from a wearable, on-demand ECG device like the new Apple Watch. (AFib is the most common arrhythmia, and the only kind Apple's watch is approved to detect.) But for everyone else, evidence suggests the potential costs could actually outweigh the proposed benefits. Despite what Benjamin says, there is such a thing as too much insight into one's health.

The new heart-monitoring capabilities on the Apple Watch aren’t all that impressive

The additional heart-health functions on the Apple Watch do have the potential to be a step in the right direction. They may well prompt someone with an irregular heartbeat to talk to their physicians about what might be going on, and could stop a more dangerous medical condition before it starts. But it’s possible that the watch flags false-positives—incorrectly stating it’s caught something—causing a user to panic that they have a potentially serious health issue when they do not.

Wearable Health Monitors: Do They Work?

Doctors can also use the monitors to diagnose patients with intermittent episodes of a-fib, which are hard to catch, and follow up on patients who have had ablations, a procedure that removes diseased tissue from the heart to try to stop a-fib symptoms.