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Venu Sq Pulse Ox Not Accurate

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over 2 years ago

Has anyone been comparing the Venu Sq Pulse Ox readings to a dedicated finger pulse oximeter? Perhaps you can share your findings here.

I have been seeing readings that are much lower than that from my finger pulse oximeter. Worryingly lower, with many times below 90%, in which hospitalization is advised! Most of the time, it read 93% or lower, which is below the healthy level of 94% and above. My finger pulse oximeter says otherwise with readings 96% and above. I am also wearing a Huawei watch on my other hand to compare and it says mostly 98 - 100%. I don't think I have hypoxia as I have been doing brisk walks daily for 3 - 4 km without any respiratory issues.

I have been using fitness trackers for some years and just got the Venu Sq a couple of months back. It's worrying me! And I am wearing the watch according to Garmin's instructions. And keeping the sensor cleaned always.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to Amandacdee

    Ignore those readings.  Return your SQ Pulse Ox Tracking Mode to the averaging All Day and add 5% to the sleep data from now on; 5% is pretty much the consensus of how far off the Garmin's are for that. 

    That said, I don't know your age or health status and this discussion is about the SQ and not you.  You should get a decent fingertip pulse oximeter.  I've used an old school big red LED digits Contec CMS50M for a few years and recently bought a Wellue PC-60F because it's prettier and also reads the perfusion index (the plethysmograph is a gimmick).

    On May 14 I sent a report to Garmin with composite screenshots showing the SQ's sleep SpO2 data and the same from the EMO-80 for ~8 hours of sleep.  In the one where the SQ reported 92% average and 83% lowest, the EMO-80's were 98 and 94. 

    Considering Garmin's horrendous SpO2 performance over a wide swath of products over the years, I'm not holding my breath.  (Pun intended.) 

    Even the best pulse oximeters all have ±2% accuracy regardless of the LED and PD sensors being transmittance (fingertip) or reflectance (wearable), the latter not having the response time or data granularity of the former.  Consider that ±2% for the non-sleep SpO2 data when adding the 5% Garmin SpO2 fudge factor when the percentages bump up against 100%.  Like, I consider a Garmin 96% to be 99%.

    It would be soooooo easy for Garmin to fix this.

    BTW:  Sleep heart rates of 55-57 BPM were agreed upon throughout, so the Garmin is good for that within this context.

    Cheers.