How many of you have changed pulse ox setting as COVID-19 measure or thought about it?

rtperna said:

I don't get the aversion to just leaving PulseOx on all the time.

Because I don't see any benefit from the Pulse Ox normally on. I live on flat country, so that I don't need to adjust to high altitude and the number doesn't much interest me. If you can tell me the benefits on having it on to justify the battery usage, I'm listening.

Only thing I can think of is having it on for during sleep to see sleep apnea, but that can be archived having it one sometimes if you are thinking you have it.

I like seeing it because there's a direct correlation to how good my workouts have been, how much sleep I've been getting, and if I'm eating/drinking properly, if I'm getting sick, etc... my PulseOx drops, and that's when I know my training isn't gonna be great.  Body Battery uses it too IIRC.   

If you want to use your oxygen saturation levels as an indicator of the presence of COVID-19 then go get a device that is certified as medical grade. Whether we like it or not, the Pulse Ox measure on our Garmin watches is not reliable or accurate enough to avoid false positives.

philipshambrook said:

If you want to use your oxygen saturation levels as an indicator of the presence of COVID-19

There seems to be a lot of confusion with the OP's post.  They never said using Pulse Ox would detect the presence of the COVID-19 virus.  They're just curious if any one is using the feature moreso now because of the CORVID-19 outbreak because one of the symptoms can be lower oxygen levels. It's no different than using Body Battery to see one's well being. It's just adding another metric to the lot. Maybe people are interpreting it differently, but I thought they made it quite clear. 

And even if it's not "medical grade", it's better than nothing. If it starts to constantly show numbers under 90%, there might be something to it. As at least now, I'm not seeing number under it.

I see it as one indicator that one might need to seek medical assistance. 

Does PulseOx give realistic numbers to you? Mine gives 85-93%, and it did that even while I was doing a medical checkup and the doctor's device was showing a solid 99% . I don't know if this is a problem with my device, or Garmin's implementation.

Nothing to compare to, but every day since activated has been 95% on average. I think that is probably somewhat too low to real number, but it's still solid number to compare if it drops.

How does the oxygen saturation measurement of the Forerunner relate to the values from a traditional finger tip measuring device? Should they be the same? The values from the Forerunner are always lower than from the fingertip device, so I'm not sure how to interpret the data.

In theory they could be close. In practice the fingertip is looking at the color shift as the light passes through the finger, the wrist is trying to estimate it from the light reflected back from the wrist.