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.

Comments

Struggle

[kv9]

The ultimate hipster struggle is real!

Re:Struggle

[netsavior]

first they made the iphone 6+ incompatible with skinny jeans and now this. Next thing you know ornate beards will wreck the facial recognition in iPhoto or whatever they call it now.

Re:Struggle

[NotDrWho]

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:Struggle

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I'm not so sure that's true. I think that wearing an Apple watch even though it doesn't work, due to your rad ink might even make it hipper.

Re:Struggle

[fahrbot-bot]

Honestly though, if HP released web cameras which couldn't see black folks, I find this strangely unsurprising.

Apparently people who build these things assume everyone is the same shade of pasty white.

The show Better Off Ted addressed something like this in their episode Racial Sensitivity when Veridian Dynamics installs new security sensors in the building, which detect employees based on the light reflecting off their skin and they can't detect black people. Veronica assures Ted that the company cares about the issue:

Ted: The system doesn't see black people?
Veronica: I know. Weird, huh?
Ted: That's more than weird, Veronica. That's basically, well... racist.
Veronica: The company's position is that it's actually the opposite of racist, because it's not targeting black people. It's just ignoring them. They insist the worst people can call it is "indifferent."
Ted: Well, they know it has to be fixed, right? Please... at least say they know that.
Veronica: Of course they do, and they're working on it. In the meantime they'd like everyone to celebrate the fact that it sees Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Jews.

Though, as true for most corporations, only cares just so much...

Veronica: "Money before people," that's the company motto. Engraved on the lobby floor. It just looks more heroic in Latin.

Waitasecondhere...

[bytethese]

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!

Re:Waitasecondhere...

[itzly]

So, basically you're saying that Apple is wrong to call blood red.

I'm not convinced.

obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

you're wearing it wrong

Image change

[paiute]

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.

A subset of first-world problems...

[argStyopa]

...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.

the $10,000 version has MORE problems.

[nimbius]

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.

No way!

[rail2rail]

Who could have possibly predicted your sleeve tattoo would limit your options later in life??

Re:First World problems

[g0bshiTe]

I have tattoos.

Tattoo from younger days...$200
Won't purchase Apple watch due to ink incompatibility...Saved $10,000
Sticking it to MegaCorp...Priceless

Re:Not every tattoo

[g0bshiTe]

Back in the day tattoos were the 1%'ers now tattoos are the 99%'ers.