In one study, Apple Watch Series 4 was near-perfect in flagging healthy vs. irregular rates

Buried in this skeptical piece from Quartz, which argues that the new watch's features "Aren't all that impressive," we also get a look at study results that seem a bit incongruous to include in a piece that's dubious about the watch In order to get FDA clearance for the inclusion and marketing of the watch's ECG features, Apple and Stanford University conducted a study of a little less than 600 people, the results of which were submitted to the FDA for review The smartphone app that the Watch 4 works with was able to identify more than 98 percent of the patients with AFib and more than 99 percent of the patients with healthy heart rates.

So why are some people skeptically poking at some of the most promising aspects of the watch? Andrew Moore, an emergency department physician at the Oregon Health and Science University, told Quartz the tech in the watch is "Rudimentary" compared to what you'd get in a hospital setting We've already written about this in an earlier post, but the FDA gave Apple the approvals it needed for the watch on the condition it stress that any readings should be seen as a guide that you'd want to get a doctor to look into The Washington Post weighed in on this, noting that "Heart rhythms naturally vary, meaning that it's likely that Apple Watch or any heart monitor could signal a problem when there isn't one - and send someone running to the doctor for no reason" The new Apple watch falls in an FDA category for "Low to moderate risk" devices. Source