Galaxy Watch 4 and Severe Apnea: A serious detection issue and my call for a solution

[victorfaeh]

Hello, Samsung community and moderators.

I am a long-time customer and heavily invested in your ecosystem (currently using an S25 Plus, Watch 4, Book3 360, and Buds2 Pro). I have always trusted the quality of your products, especially the Watch 4 as my daily health monitoring partner.

I'm starting this thread to report a very serious issue and to request a response from Samsung. I was recently diagnosed via a polysomnography with severe obstructive sleep apnea.

To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, the medical exam showed:

• An index of 59.76 events per hour (normal is up to 5).
• 504 breathing cessations during sleep.
• My oxygen saturation (O2) dropped to a minimum of 70%.

The most alarming part is that my Watch 4's apnea detection feature completely failed to alert me. On the contrary, just two days before the exam, the app stated: "No signs of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea were detected".

I understand the watch is not a medical device, but a feature specifically designed to detect "signs of apnea" should not display an "all clear" result for a severe clinical condition. This is a deeply concerning oversight that creates a false sense of security and puts the user's health at risk.

Given such a clear-cut case, I ask the community: has anyone here experienced such a massive discrepancy between the watch's data and a medical diagnosis? It's crucial that we share these experiences.

I am using this public post to formally request contact from a Samsung representative. This is not just feedback; it is a formal request for a solution for a product that did not perform its safety-related function. I await a response to resolve this matter.

Thank you.

[LongHiker]

@victorfaeh Sorry, but this is a user to user discussion area. It is not a direct line of communication to Samsung. 

[victorfaeh]

I know, bro, but I've already tried to contact Samsung directly and didn't receive the proper support. Since this is a public and freely accessible forum, I wanted to interact with the rest of the community and see if, due to the post being public, someone from the company might do something to help and avoid tarnishing the company's name.

[realaud]

The apnea feature is only to detect if you have a problem you need to investigate with a medical professional. It is NOT meant to be an alert system. It only does the measurement for two days, not continuous.

[victorfaeh]

Exactly. I tried for 6 nights (3 attempts), and when I went to see a doctor and had the exam, I found out that I suffer from a severe case of apnea. I have an average of 50 apneas per hour, which is 500-600 apneas in one night. The fact that the watch couldn't detect a SINGLE apnea, throughout the entire night, over 6 days, is indeed very serious. I will add a part of my exam results that shows the number of apneas and desaturations with more precision.

[realaud]

Once again, you have to wait for the programmers to respond to your error report. No one here can help you. It's also entirely possible something was interfering with the sensors or you did not have your phone plugged in.

I don't know how you attempted to contact Samsung, but you must put an error report in through the feedback link in the support tab of the members app.  If this is not the way you contacted Samsung, you should do it now. It's best to make another attempt at detection and then send the error report right when you wake up, so the data will still be contained in the logs.  https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Tips-Tricks/How-to-Send-Feedback/ba-p/3001692

[Samsung_Moderator · Accepted solution]

Thank you for reaching out. I can certainly understand your concern with the watch not detecting your sleep apnea. I would recommend reaching out to our Samsung Health team directly using this link: https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Community-Service/Samsung-Support-Acknowledgement/ba-p/2300671

This team will need to work with you directly to collect some logs from your watch. This will allow them to look deeper into the symptom you are experiencing. They will walk you through how to collect the proper logs they are requiring to assist you further.