This week, information appeared on the Internet according to which Apple Watch does not work properly on hands with tattooed wrists, and in the video clip above you have an example of the problem. Today the company Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), has confirmed for affected users that the existence of dark tattoos on their wrists can generate reading problems for the heart rate sensor.
Through this sensor, not only the heartbeat is measured, but contact with the skin is also detected, such as a Apple Watch it becomes, in essence, unusable if the person wearing it has a tattoo on their hand. Considering that one of the security measures of the Apple Watch requires the detection of contact with the skin, the watch will not authorize payments through Apple Pay, nor will it even display notifications, asking for the entry of a security code after each lock.
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.
In a support document, the Apple company confirms the existence of the problems, but it limits itself to referring only to the measurement of heartbeats, although in reality the problem is much more complicated and affects other functions. Apple only offers recommendations to connect the watch to external accessories that measure heartbeats, but for the rest of the functions, unfortunately, there is no other alternative than disabling the security measure of the watch.
According to the people who have reported the problem so far, it seems that only those whose tattoos are very dark and in which the non-black color and the red color predominate have difficulties in using it. In the rest of the cases, it seems that some tattoos do not prevent the use of the Apple Watch, but everything is different from case to case and from tattoo to tattoo, so you have to convince yourself how big the problem will be.
If you have problems with skin detection by the Apple Watch, then in the settings menu of the Watch application in iOS you will have to disable the Wrist Detection option.
