Slashdot Mirror
Tattoos Found To Interfere With Apple Watch Sensors
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.
The ultimate hipster struggle is real!
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
You're saying that pigments with metal particles in them are blocking certain wavelengths of light from penetrating the skin? I'm shocked. I'm shocked, Cotton!
#toughshit
you're wearing it wrong
That's what you get for designing your hardware deep in secretive cleanrooms staffed by pallid programmers and dainty designers.
Apple is trying to move away from being perceived as the hardware of choice of nose-ringed tattoo-sleeved hipsters. This ink incompatibility is not a bug but a feature.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Now I have reason to get one.
what? a tat(too) or some tat (i.e. an Apple watch)?
Looks like your mother was right. You will regret that tattoo some day down the line.
Didn't include Apple Store employees.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
...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.
-Styopa
Perfect...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Im sure fellow readers are concerned about the $10,000 version of the apple watch, and as an early adopter I am truly livid. If the watch comes into contact with my tattoo of the spirit of extacy riding a diamond into tattooine astride a golden dove the sensors stop working entirely. The watch is also difficult to locate as im sure most people have undoubtedly found out. I had to search all five bedrooms on the yacht just to find the darn thing! Also the watch has difficulty determining if or when I am wearing the rare jade oriental pendant of everlasting immortality, and just last weekend I had to buy a new one after I bumped into the caviar chafing dish and spilled lemon rochette truffle remoulade on the band.
Its not that apple doesnt make an excellent product, they truly do! But I for one am getting tired of having to take the same bently to the same helicopter every other week to send my manservant into the apple "store" as the common people call it to have it replaced. A man can only tolerate so much car champagne before the aftertaste of the lox comingling with the alsace vintage becomes too much to bear.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Anyone who buys an Apple Watch, deserves and gets not a lot, but they have paid a lot - giving Tim Cook a nice bonus at the end of the year!
Not all tattoo inks are created equal. Many practitioners use ink from botanical sources. I didn't know tattoos were a hipster thing. I thought they were more into beards, cutoff shorts, and bicycles?
... and I refer it to the tattoo, obviously. You would never wear it where the Watch was designed to be.
Not sure about that, all the Apple Stores I've been in there was no shortage of full sleeved tattooed clerks.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Apple watch finally tells you the truth that you did't want to hear from your mom back then: tattooing might not be that good an idea at all.
Hasn't it always been known that early adopters are exposed to some risk? Yup, you can pay a lot of money to be the first person with a new gadget, but you are paying a premium to be a guinea pig and reinforcing that there is a market where people pay a lot of money to be a guinea pig. (Yes, Apple probably should have considered tattooed skin in their testing.)
Da Planes?
I wonder, did you ever get braces? Have your wisdom teeth pulled?
"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?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Who could have possibly predicted your sleeve tattoo would limit your options later in life??
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.
If you want a tattoo on your wrist, either put it on the wrist where you wouldn't wear a watch, or go to some competent tattoo artist who will be able to advise you what kind of ink will affect your skin more or and which one will affect it less; consider that the Apple Watch is just the start of wearing things around your wrist. .
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hipsters ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha habha oh god. Lameness. Filter
Are some people planning on wearing them in their mouths then?
I am somewhat surprised at this being a negative for potential buyers. Never would have thought the sensors would have difficulty with tattoos. I still have a hard time justifying the usefulness of a watch requiring your iPhone anyway. Especially at what Apple is charging. Then your basically tied to a iPhone if you want you Apple Watch to fully work. I see how this benefits Apple no doubt. But the end users ends up with far less choices down the road. Right now I think I would pass on any kind of smart device for my wrist. But if I did decide on one, it would have to at least work with more then a iPhone or be self reliant and not require any other device to work properly.
You have tattoos? No soup for you!
NEXT!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Aren't braces a temporary project to permanently make your teeth normal? Don't you have wisdom teeth pulled to make a minor deviation for the purpose of correcting a major one?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Another Apple fail that everyone will make excuses for.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Fake Steve Jobs would say we don't want those tattooed dregs sporting our watch anyhow. But the article seems like rubbish. There's no way a tatoo is going to impact a tap sensation. And if it does it's your fault anyhow for numbing your skin.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
when the skin begins to sag
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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...folks with enough tattoos to make it in a circus show are very much in the minority. And like I said, generally...those folks are not the market for an expensive toy like the iWatch.
I've never seen any of the Apple Store employees here with any noticeable ink on them.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
are for lusers!
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.
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.
If 2 out of 3 Apple products failed then we probably would have heard about that by now.
You seem to have a solid handle on all the engineering & market challenges involved.
"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!"
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 quadruple shot mocha and daintily tapping away at his MacBook Air. It is a very strange world at times.
Now, it isn't obvious that this guy and his cute friends are the prototypical iWatch purchasers but I'll wager there is going to be some overlap here.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I get the feeling that your insane anger was caused by being stuffed in one locker too many.
Maybe that's what they're doing when they disappear into the backroom for awhile.
Hipsters don't buy popular items. What is hip about being like everyone else? The people being described as "hipsters" here are nothing more than consumers of popular culture, which is the EXACT opposite of what a hipster is.
I work in an office, I wear a shirt to the wrist. It's none of my employers business what's under that shirt sleeve.
Yet combined I find them hilarious! Tattooed fools and Apple products!
"Tattoos? You're living wrong." - Apple Chief Officers
... I ignore any complaint which sticks the word "gate" to the end of a word. The only objection I have found worthwhile to be described in terms ending with "gate" is the original: Watergate. Everything else feels to Me like a pathetic "Me too"-ism.
The downtown Portland Apple store had heavily decorated employees. Of the ones I noticed, more had ink, piercings, and hair dye than did not. But that's downtown Portland, so probably not the best example, just happens to be the only one I've been in lately.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
You mean that optical sensors are disrupted when you inject opaque pigments into a translucent substrate?
If you read page 226 of the 1200 page EULA, its for whites only. They recommend cheaper Android watches for colored skin
This sucks for Apple especially since the target demographic for this product is poor decision makers, like people who get wrist tattoos or buy Apple stuff.
That's one way to keep your employees from pilfering inventory for themselves and their friends.
Isn't that the official statement?
Film at 11!
Wow, no fucking shit, sherlock!
We are in the midst of a decades-long scandal. It seems lazy people who evidently hate the English language have been appendin "-gate" at the end of pretty much anything that annoys or inconveniences them.
I'm sure when you tell the Apple Store people their watch doesn't work on your tattooed wrist, they will take it back and issue a refund. You may have to spend 15 minutes doing that instead of picking out artisanal teapots or locally-sourced beard wax. Oh the horrors!
#noteverythingisafuckinggate-gate
Nothing posted to
Easy! Just get an Apple Watch tattoo. Problem solved.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
In other news, hordes of hipsters realize to their horror that electronics aren't magical.
It's never been a secret the Apple watch uses an optical sensor - if it's blocked by anything it won't work; it's just the nature of optical sensors...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Owners of Apple Watch have taken to social media to voice their frustration using the hashtag #tattoogate
And this is where you lost me and hopefully many others. Protip, if you want people to take your cause seriously, don't use -gate. I and I'm sure many others are more than willing to listen to your problems with the Apple Watch, but when you use -gate, you are telling us that your problems cannot stand on their own merits, and are thus not worth our time.
Apple users don;t seem too swift when they can't hold a phone correctly and now they can't even wear a watch correctly.
Where do these half-wits get all of the money?
How do they have money to buy an iwatch? Tattoos on hands and wrists seems like a great way to make yourself unemployable and eternally poor.
Are you sure Louisiana is a place where "anything goes"??? I guess you need to come to Seattle, where you'll meet bankers with neck tattoos and insurance executives with nose rings. Sorry, but New Orleans hasn't been avant guarde for decades.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Apple is just using the word 'Tattoo' as a code word for skin color: 'Black' stands for African, 'Red' stands for Native Americans and 'Yellow' stands for Asians (e.g. Chinese, Japanese and Korean).
Apple 'engineered' one hell-of-a great PR nightmare!
Ha ha
having read several of your posts in this thread, i'd just like to kindly point out that you seem like a raging douchebag.
hope this helps! have a nice day.
If you haven't noticed, Hipsters are pretty mainstream now.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
seriously bro. smoke a bowl or have a glass of scotch. unclench that asshole. breathe a few times. namaste, turdbag.
"Again, you're wearing it wrong."
- Apple Inc.
"sharing their disappointment over the newly discovered Apple flaw."
They also don't get hired by banks and other serious businesses, it ain't a 'bank flaw'.
It was just a bad idea to get a tattoo and now you pay for it.
obviously the Apple domos in China and One Infinite Loop didn't have a stable of bikers and wearable art folks availiable to see if the watch worked right with those injected clays, metallics, and inorganic dyes strewn all across the bio-network. I doubt they'd have been able to work around it, either. breast implants are known to fuzz up mammograms and can hide tumors, as well as complicate angioplasty. muck up the network, don't expect clear signals.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
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.
How about "Emergency services personnel can't use a pulse oximetry device on your tattooed skin in order to save your life following a car accident"?
The device that's being interfered with is a pretty standard non-invasive pulse ox device that happens to be built into the watch.
No flaw. It works on the demographic skin that it was designed for.
this is hardly news. anyone surprised is either 1 stupid or 2 doesn't understand how light based HRM sensors work. In either case, it's no surprise
The $40 1"x.5" ankle tattoo I got when I was nineteen is costing $850 to remove 20 years later. No, I'm not having it removed so I can wear an Apple Watch on my ankle. I'm having it removed because tattoos are often provocative. They typically say three things, often all at once: Love, hate and challenge. I agree with the writer Theodore Dalyrymple; tattoos are part of the toxic cult of sentimentalism in today's society.
the Apple Watch is just the end of wearing things around your wrist. .
I understand completely now why you're such an argumentative douche:
So which do you grow? Poppies, hemp, or coca? Maybe mushrooms?
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?
So is the Apple Watch not working with wrist tattoos equivalent to a malfunctioning car, failing laptop, or or contaminated drugs/food? You call the GP commenter a shill. You sounds silly and shrill.
If you have wrist tattoos (my guess is you don't) and the watch doesn't work for you return it. Get some perspective, and buy a Google Wear instead.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Oh no! Next thing you know, steel boogers and lip rings will limit employment options!
If your dick skin is cream colored then there is hope that the fucker Apple Watch will work!
If your dick skin is chocolate for instance, then you have a problem.
A work-around is to de-strap the Apple Watch and give to your 'Girl Friend' to insert it up her vagina; if you are Gay, insert it up your rectum and pray.
Ha ha
Don't tattoo-shame you shitlords!
Because Yakuzas also wear tattoos with pride, you are committing racism against Asians and do mafia-shaming at the same time!
People have the right to harass, extort and kill people!
By your own admission Apple does test the products before they reach customers. Your original post claimed that they didn't--obviously that post was wrong.
http://fusion.net/story/60771/will-the-apple-watchs-coolest-feature-work-for-people-of-color/
Apple is using Tattoo to hid the fact that skin tone, melanin, means the optical sensor has to use strong light to penetrate to a required depth, and if the skin is very dark the sensor will fail in addition to draining the battery.
"The skin on the back of the wrist tends to be darker, too, especially for people with more melanin. “The light has to penetrate through several layersand so the higher the person is on the Fitzpatrick scale (a measure of skin tone), the more difficult it is for light to bounce back,” explained Basis COO Bharat Vasan to CNET."
"Apple’s executives form a key early testing team. The company’s top people become the company’s default customers. And if people with dark skin do have problems with the watch’s heart-rate sensor, none of Apple’s top executives would have experienced it."
Right! They are all Caucasian.
"Using optical technology to measure heart rate might also mean that people with darker skin will experience a greater drain on their watch battery, because of the more intense light required to power the sensor."
I was right all along.
Ha ha
Everyone stupid enough to buy a watch with a battery that can't last all day, see me about a bridge.
You're wearing it wrong.
Stuff you might put in (or on) your wrist preventing Apple's watch from working right isn't really a problem with the watch. You did something non-standard to your skin and now you want some tech company to compensate for it?
It's not their problem; it's your problem. But it's not a very significant problem in the big picture because only a tiny percentage of people have tattoos on their wrists. Of those, a minority want one. Of those, only a few percent can afford one. We're talking a handful of people affected. Why should Apple care?