Tattoos Found To Interfere With Apple Watch Sensors 403
An anonymous reader writes: A number of early Apple Watch adopters have complained that their tattoos cause interference with many of the new product's key features. According to multiple tattooed sources, inked wrists and hands can disrupt communication with the wearable's sensors installed in the underside of the device leading to malfunction. Owners of Apple Watch have taken to social media to voice their frustration using the hashtag #tattoogate and sharing their disappointment over the newly discovered Apple flaw. One user reported that the Watch's lock system did not disable as it should when the device was placed on a decorated area of skin – forcing those affected to constantly enter their security pins. A further source suggested that notification alerts would fail to 'ping' as they are supposed to, and that heart rate monitoring differed significantly between tattooed and non-tattooed wrist readings.
Struggle (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
This means 100% Hip just cannot happen!
Me I have no interest in either having an Apple Watch (unless it goes down by $200) and I don't want a Tattoo.
But I never was Hip anyways, back in my day it was called cool.
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Insightful)
...you really should see it in action though. As someone who lives in Portland, OR... I can, even now, hear the distant howls of heart-rending anguish from the many coffeeshops drifting up to my office. You'd think that skinny jeans were banned or something.
Okay, just (half-) joking.
I'm slightly amused at it though - no one really thought it through that if you put colored shit in your dermis** , it will interfere with a device that relies on skin capacitance for some of its features? Really? Are we that damned ignorant (and overly-entitled) as human beings, or is my beard just getting too many gray hairs in it?
** I have four tattoos about my body, incidentally, so all you 'inked' mofos can keep your righteous indignation to yourselves. ;)
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Informative)
It's not about capacitance. The watch shines different coloured light through the skin and monitors colour changes to figure certain things out. Ink is going to absorb or reflect that light in a way that the watch isn't calibrated to handle. Ink isn't melanin, so darker skinned people won't have the same problems.
My sleeves look a lot better than an Apple watch ever could, but I may just barely have enough open skin to wear one if I wanted to.
Re:Struggle (Score:4, Informative)
They definitely did test it on people with naturally dark skin, and it works fine. The natural pigments are fairly transparent to the green light they're using. It's the artificial pigments, which are blacker than any actual black people, that are problematic.
Re: (Score:3)
In my case, it was a combination of alcohol and a buddy in the barracks with a tattoo gun. All but one turned out astoundingly well in spite of my dumbassed youthful decision. Mind you, 25 years later I still carry 'em everywhere I go (all of them were fully within USAF regulations, in that all but one hides nicely under my shirt, and a std. shirt collar hides the one on the back of my neck).
Funny thing though - nowadays, kids who get tattoos (esp. amateur ones) can remove them with what's called Wrecking B [wreckingbalm.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Quite a few people seem to get Chinese or Japanese tattoos without even bothering to figure out if they say what they think they say.
Or not understanding the basics of the written language. I've seen more than one example where a word is composed of two characters but one of the them is written in traditional and the other is in simplified. That's like getting a word tattoo that is in two different fonts with part of it in Olde English script (and spellings) and the other in modern sans serif.
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Funny)
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Just to be clear, we're all joking about Apple only being popular with hipsters, but in main-stream numbers. Correct?
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Informative)
The ultimate hipster struggle is real!
Since when do hipsters care about whether their fashion is actually functional or not? Having a watch that doesn't fully work may be more hipster than one that does.
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Funny)
Oh god, please tell me that the screen can at least tolerate a small amount of mustache wax and that its alarms won't interfere with the warm sound of my vinyl records!!
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Struggle (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that hard. You can save up a good amount of money with a job like that when you live with your parents and they pay for all your food.
hiptards (Score:3)
I heard it doesn't work through bandaids either.
from apple's website:
What else affects your reading?
Many factors can affect the performance of the Apple Watch heart rate sensor. Skin perfusion is one. A fancy way of describing how much blood flows through your skin, skin perfusion varies significantly from person to person and can also be impacted by the environment. If you’re exercising in the cold, for example, the skin perfusion in your wrist may be too low for the heart rate sensor to get a reading.
Motion is another factor that can affect the heart rate sensor. Rhythmic movements, such as running or cycling, give better results compared to irregular movements, like tennis or boxing.
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.
If you’re not able to get a consistent reading because of any of these factors, you can connect your Apple Watch wirelessly to external heart rate monitors such as Bluetooth chest straps.
Heart rate is just one of many factors that Apple Watch uses to measure your activity and exercise. Depending on your workout, it selects the most appropriate inputs for that activity. For example, when you’re running indoors, it also uses the accelerometer. When you’re cycling outdoors, it uses the GPS in your iPhone. And even when you’re not in a dedicated workout, it tracks how much you move each day. So Apple Watch can give you the information — and the motivation — to improve your fitness and your health.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
Re: (Score:3)
The sensors on the Apple Watch and other devices use specific color range of light to detect blood flow through the skin. The tattoo ink can block it.
Yet another reason not to mark up one's body.
I hardly think "Can't use an Apple Watch" ranks very highly on the list of reasons not to get a tattoo since there's such an easy workaround -- don't buy an apple watch.
Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that there's a technical issue isn't what matters. What matters is that they apparently either didn't think to test it, or didn't warn purchasers that it might be an issue.
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:4, Informative)
Um, actually they did.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, starting yesterday, anyway...
http://web.archive.org/web/201... [archive.org]
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:4, Insightful)
But it does say this:
"Even under ideal conditions, Apple Watch may not be able to get a reliable heart rate reading every time for everybody. And for a small percentage of users, various factors may make it impossible to get any heart rate reading at all."
Tattoos being one of the 'various factors' that they didn't explicitly say, then later did. Big whoop.
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Informative)
http://web.archive.org/web/201... [archive.org]
No mention of tattoos anywhere, to my knowledge. Granted, this is being fairly pedantic, but it surprises me that posters on slashdot would look at a page on the web in its current form and make statements that seem to imply that page has always existed in that same form.
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If you read the support article, you'll see that it mentions that it may not be able to get your heart rate if you have tattoos, not that you'll have to keep entering your PIN because it thinks you've taken it off your wrist.
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"If you read the support article"
Which you obviously didn't do, or you'd have seen the page was edited yesterday, and that a wayback machine check shows they didn't talk about tattoos in the first fucking place. [archive.org]
Re: (Score:2)
No, they didn't.
Original post via wayback machine [archive.org]
Post modified yesterday. [apple.com]
Try again, Apple Apologist.
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But it does say this:
"Even under ideal conditions, Apple Watch may not be able to get a reliable heart rate reading every time for everybody. And for a small percentage of users, various factors may make it impossible to get any heart rate reading at all."
Tattoos being one of the 'various factors'.
Re: (Score:2)
Now if they didn't work on black people, you'd have a story, but nobody said the Watch would work over tattoos, and nobody asked either.
Actually, since you mention it, they were talking about just that issue not long ago (early last week, maybe?) before this "Tattoogate" bullshit started. Can't seem to find a link now, since it's all "tattoos" now and apparently you can't do "-keyword" in search engines anymore
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or C) neither of the above
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
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You have an archive link for that?
"Last Modified: Apr 29, 2015 " - makes me think they noticed and edited
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They did notice and edit. You are absolutely correct.
Gotta edit those marketing materials before people notice!
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Informative)
That was recently modified to include the part about tattoos check the page in the wayback machine before it was updated yesterday.
http://web.archive.org/web/201... [archive.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Plus the MS Band seems to work fine with sleeve tattoos using the same basic method.
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:4, Funny)
So, basically you're saying that Apple is wrong to call blood red.
I'm not convinced.
You're an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
They were dumbing down the explanation to make it understandable, there's obviously enough of an absorbtion difference to be detectable--that's all that matters.
Maybe stop investing so much of your self-worth into your choice of consumer electronics and then you won't feel the need to invent lame excuses (like bullshit marketing) for why someone else's choice is flawed.
Re: (Score:2)
Then explain how it works.
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that *some* green light is reflected from blood misses the point. It absorbs *most* of the green light, and therefore green is useful. And if you want to quibble with that, then you probably suck at your job.
Re:Waitasecondhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ, you sounds like somebody who is butt hurt because they took a 3 week course for a technical certification and are insecure about how "expert" they are compared to people with actual education. Their description is accurate enough for marketing materials. By your own admission there is at least one green wavelength that blood cells absorb and at least one red one that they reflect. Therefore their information isn't incorrect and anyone with actual expertise in this area (like myself and others with this expertise have pointed out to you) can easily understand how they could make a sensor based on this phenomenon. It's not a new idea. These sensors have been around for decades and are used in hospitals routinely. It's basically a modified pulse oximeter, just since it uses only one wavelength instead of two it gets only the plethismograph information instead of the pleth AND oximetetry. Which is enough to determine a pulse rate.
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Honestly, I'd not have thought about it either....such a fringe thing that it likely wouldn't have been thought up.
I don't know that many people that have so much of their skin painted up that it would cause interference. I'd guess most professional folks, like the IT folks at Apple aren't all painted up from head to toe with tattoos.
Sure, lots of folks these days may have one or two, but usual
Re: (Score:2)
"such a fringe thing that it likely wouldn't have been thought up."
Most of the idiot Apple 'Geniuses' I've encountered have near full-sleeve tattoos going to damn near their palm.
Do you think Apple 'Geniuses' design new products? (Score:2)
Maybe that's what they're doing when they disappear into the backroom for awhile.
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously don't get out much ... the kids go straight to full sleeves these days because they're cool and highly visible.
The tramp stamp of years ago has been replaced with brightly colored new school sleeves. I wouldn't be cool and edgy if people didn't know you had it.
Honestly, if Apple didn't have some inked up folks around I'd be surprised. But chances are nobody ever thought of it as a test case.
Many people have lots of ink which can be hidden when needed ... but a lot of kids start with the high
Re: (Score:3)
" B) tattoos that contain metal (which isn't present in most of the ink that US Tattoo artists use)? Yeah no."
Good job on your chemistry failure.
Carbon acts like a metal in various situations. It even bonds to metal quite readily. Carbon also interferes with all kinds of things when it comes to light sensors.
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For the tiny percent of people who have tattoos that cover all the way down, why would they waste money or resources trying to figure out that last barely 1 percent or less? That makes no sense from a business stand point, on the other hand I totally agree with you on they should have a warning for those people with tattoo. For most, there is still time to return the watch, stop being major cry babies, thats how you let companies know there product has problems, RETURN IT.
So, GM shouldn't have fixed the ignition key problem because it affects even less than your "barely 1%"? And if a laptop design has barely 1% of cpus fail out of the box, that's okay? Or drugs or contaminated food shouldn't be recalled because it only affects barely 1%? Can you change your name from Anonymous Coward to Corporate Shill?
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"For the tiny percent of people who have tattoos that cover all the way down, why would they waste money or resources trying to figure out that last barely 1 percent or less?"
Are you too stupid to figure out Apple runs off of hipster blood?
That's obviously made-up bullshit (Score:3)
If 2 out of 3 Apple products failed then we probably would have heard about that by now.
Re: (Score:2)
When I worked as an Apple repair tech, two out of every three machines off the line would fail and would require immediate refurbishing.
Yeah, no. I worked as an Apple service manager, and the initial failure rate is in the low single digits - the best in the industry. Try again, pal.
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Also, #clickbaitheadlines not withstanding, it's true for all the wrist type devices.
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"Also, #clickbaitheadlines not withstanding, it's true for all the wrist type devices."
You mean all wrist devices that aren't ENGINEERED WITH REALITY IN MIND AND ONLY FOCUS ON HIPSTER BULLSHIT.
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
you're wearing it wrong
Image change (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously product testing... (Score:2, Troll)
A subset of first-world problems... (Score:5, Funny)
...hipster tragedy*:
"Oh no, my trendy tattoo is interfering with my Apple Smart watch! What ever will I do?"
*also called comedy by the rest of us.
Re: (Score:2)
...hipster tragedy*:
"Oh no, my trendy tattoo is interfering with my Apple Smart watch! What ever will I do?"
*also called comedy by the rest of us.
I'd call it irony.
They threw away their watches because the iPhone freed them from wearing it and got sleeves because it was trendy to limit their employment options for the rest of their lives.
The irony is that a new trendy thing can only be worn by people who probably think tattoos are lame and don't really care about being an early iMustGetTheLatestTrendyAppleThing adopter. They're probably thinking 'my tattoos aren't so trendy anymore and it's all Apples fault because iWant an iWatch`.
Now if I cou
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
No way! (Score:5, Funny)
What is the obsession with tattoos... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ick. I've never understood why people get tattoos. While I can respect the idea of using the human body as a canvas for art, it just doesn't come across as such. Perhaps it is just the way my brain is wired, when I see a tattoo my brain instinctively registers it as "damage" and that the person may be injured or ill. Certainly others must have the same instinctive reaction, yet it seems even more people are doing that these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Its just another fashion trend for sheeple. Most of the idiots getting covered in tattoos right now, in 20 years time - when they look about as trendy as orange flared trousers and Maori Dragon on their arm with all the baggy skin now looks like he ate too many goats and fell down the mountain hitting every boulder on the way down - will be the ones whining that they can't afford the laser treatment to have them removed.
so you look creepy over 40 (Score:2)
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I think tattoos are stupid. That's why I don't have any. I can say this for a lot of things other people like. I don't understand why someone would do it, but as long as nobody does it to me, I'm not bothered by it.
Re:What is the obsession with tattoos... (Score:5, Interesting)
I look at the whole human body as an aesthetic. I'm not usually looking at women in a sexual way at first glance; the first things I notice are body shape, skin tone consistency (blotchy and ragged or smooth and soft?), hair, and so forth. I see a complete picture, a canvas I guess you could say, all these elements brought together to express the physical state of a person; it even goes so far as exactly how they move, what expressions they show, and, of course, what they're wearing.
After taking all that in, I decide what category of attractiveness she falls into, if she's sexually attractive, if she's intimidating, or whatnot. All the normal stuff. You'd be surprised how much sexual attraction falls squarely on a good smile, a good voice, body movement, the emotional regard of personality (yes, even for a sociopath with no real empathy). The first look is to see what image I'm looking at, how it flows, and how visually pleasing it is; the second is to see how I feel about it, if I want it, and what I want it for.
Tattoos are art. Unfortunately, they're the kind of art you get by printing out RWBY fanart and gluing it into the middle of a Van Gogh: maybe the artist has really good lines and anatomy, and the picture is really great, but it fucks up the Van Gogh.
The lesson (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
And here I thought the cellphone was the END of wearing things around my wrist....
The Watch Nazi (Score:2)
You have tattoos? No soup for you!
NEXT!
Again? (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
Another hipster fail that everyone will blame Apple for.
FTFY
Apple flaw? (Score:5, Insightful)
over the newly discovered Apple flaw.
How is it Apples fault your body contains a deposit of metallic pigments where there should be none?
Seems more like a defect in the wearer to me.
How about other watches/fitness trackers? (Score:2)
So, now that we're all frothing at the mouth and getting our pitchforks, has anyone bothered to check if other smart watches or fitness trackers have same issues or it's only Apple's?
Just curious if this is something endemic to the entire category or only the technology Apple used in their watch.
Hilarious! (Score:2)
"Wah! I changed the wheels on my car and now the hubcaps I wanted to buy don't fit anymore! Somebody MAKE them make those hubcaps to fit a 13.5" Russian army surplus wheel!"
Target Demographic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Now I have reason to get one.
what? a tat(too) or some tat (i.e. an Apple watch)?
Re:Straitlaced Engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've ever been to the Apple campus, you'll find there is not a shortage of tattoos.
Re: (Score:2)
As noted by others (just copying the link);
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
Just a case of uninformed, self-entitled hipsters (is there any other kind of hipster?).
Re: (Score:2)
That was recently update to include the bit about the tattoos http://web.archive.org/web/201... [archive.org]
of course if you read how the sensor works you would know that scarring, discoloration of the skin, and tattoos would all be a possible problem it just wasn't spelled out for the masses.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
As noted by FUCKING HISTORY [archive.org] you are absolutely full of shit, you apologist shill.
Re: (Score:3)
And as noted by others in reply to your note from others, your own fucking wayback machine link states:
"Even under ideal conditions, Apple Watch may not be able to get a reliable heart rate reading every time for everybody. And for a small percentage of users, various factors may make it impossible to get any heart rate reading at all."
Clearly, having a tattoo counts as one of the "various factors"
Re: (Score:3)
If companies had to list everything that's not possible with their products, everything would come with enough books to fill an olympic swimming pool.
Did you know you can't wear the Apple watch if you don't have arms?
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Re: (Score:2)
"Did you know you can't wear the Apple watch if you don't have arms?"
Dunno, my ankles seem to fit this wristband just fine.
Oh, wait, too stupid to think critically.
Did you know most /. posters simply don't have common sense, despite their supposed education?
Re: (Score:2)
Apple provides a link on the very front product page [apple.com] labeled "Learn about the Apple Watch heart rate sensor, its accuracy and limitations", which then points to a page [apple.com] that specifically mentions the tattoo issue. NatasRevol pointed this page out, but I noticed it was a support page, and wondered how prominently it was displayed. As it turns out, it's very easy to find that page and information.
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.
A legitimate question is, of course, how long that link and information has been there. If it just recently went
Re: (Score:2)
preorders began on april 10th
The wayback machine on april 11th http://web.archive.org/web/201... [archive.org]
The current page says it was last updated yesterday.
From the description of how the sensor works you would think that scarring, skin discoloration, and tattoos could all be a problem but it was not spelled out. {maybe extremely hairy wrists too}
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly my problem with Apple and many other product designers. Phone screens that don't work with gloves. Phones that aren't waterproof. Phones that can't have the storage upgraded or battery replaced. Self driving cars that can't handle rain and snow. There's a lot of products out there that only work in very specific conditions and that fail when used outside the very narrow range in which they were tested.
You should start a company and do it better. (Score:2)
You seem to have a solid handle on all the engineering & market challenges involved.
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Wow..where do you live?
I mean, hell, I live in New Orleans...where pretty much ANYTHING goes, and I rarely see people with that much tattoo work done on them.
Most people that could afford an iWatch are gonna have 'real' jobs...and you generally can't be all painted up from head to toe, with piercings galore and work in an office, etc.
So, even in a town where wild and different is the norm...folk
Re: (Score:2)
Ha. New Orleans must be losing it. Up here in unHipster Alaska you see quite a number of heavily tattooed folk carting around iPhones, iPads and various other iAccoutraments. These are typically working class folk - fisherman, lumberjacks (yes, we have them), cannery workers and such who happen to make a lot money (at least at times) and think that shinys are worthwhile expenditures. Yeah, it looks a bit, shall we say, different, to see some heavily muscled guy in beat up work clothes sipping a grande q
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"Apple can't possibly design it to work with people's wrists that fall outside of normality" you mean like a fat ass not being able to fit in a single airplane seat?
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Are some people planning on wearing them in their mouths then?
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That and tattoo sleeves. And Apple told them about it on the website...
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And Apple fixed their website yesterday.
'
FTFY
Re:Not every tattoo (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Back in the day tattoos were the 1%'ers.
I'm sure that "back in the days" trailer trash accounted for more than 1%.
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Then one might suggest you either live under a rock, or have no contact with tattoos.
Nowadays the kiddies with the stretched ears get their sleeves as their first tattoos, instead of getting a bunch of smaller ones first.
The sleeve tattoo is very much now a hipster thing. In some ways, so is the neck tattoo.
Hell, your average barrista seems to be required to have stretched lobes, dreads, and full sleeves ... even if they don't have any other tattoos.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll be bangin' 18 year olds when I'm 40, because the fad will finally be over and I can get some women whose skin doesn't have blue and black blotches like the fucking bubonic plague all over it.
Tattoos look nice, but they don't look nice on your body. It's like grabbing piles of cool shit and plastering it all together in a house: you have the ugliest fucking house in existence. If you would learn to theme it properly, you'd get a nice interior design. Problem: tattoos don't make for a nice body des
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very few tats look good. Most are exactly as you describe, blotches. Half the time, you can't tell WTF the tat was supposed to be. Its cool, until its not. Then it is just permanent reminder how suggestible you are. On the plus side, you can tell who are the sheeple this way.
Re:First World problems (Score:5, Funny)
Tattoo from younger days...$200
Won't purchase Apple watch due to ink incompatibility...Saved $10,000
Sticking it to MegaCorp...Priceless
Re:First World problems (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a tattoo. Saved $200 ... Priceless!
Not buying an iWatch Saved 10,000
Sticking to nobody, just living my life
Re: (Score:2)
How are you "sticking it to megacorp"? They look at your tattoo and fedora (or perpetually-worn knit cap)and dismiss you as a hipster doofus. That's really sticking it to them alright.
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Smiles everyone, smiles!