Title is misleading IMO. The study has nothing specific to do with Apple Watch. They mentioned that they used "a commonly worn commercial wearable device (Apple Watch)" for testing. Any device with continuous heart rate monitoring will do.
> Your comment is supposition. Likely correct, but not guaranteed.
No, the paper was very clear that Apple Watch was used to measure Heart Rate Variability (HRV). There is absolutely no mention of any unique advantages that Apple Watch provided in the given scenario. The study is about using the HRV data from a wearable device to identify indicators of COVID-19; it is not an endorsement or an advertisement for Apple.
Have you compared the HRV data from different devices? Have you compared the Apple HRV data and the data from other devices to a reference instrument, or confirmed that it meets some standard?
The Apple Watch is the reference instrument for this paper. It would be a scientific error to conceal that fact.
This isn’t about product endorsements, it’s about saying what laboratory equipment was used so that other scientists don’t have hidden confounds when they attempt to replicate.
> The Apple Watch is the reference instrument for this paper.
Exactly. It is an instrument used to gather metrics. The study is about analyzing the metrics and not so much about the tools used to gather those metrics. Read the paper's title.
> Title is misleading IMO. The study has nothing specific to do with Apple Watch. They mentioned that they used "a commonly worn commercial wearable device (Apple Watch)" for testing.
The title is factual and not misleading. It seems like you want it changed to remove a fact.
> Any device with continuous heart rate monitoring will do.
This is something you assert, is definitely not a conclusion of the study, and is misleading.
Considering the proliferation of fake pulse-oximeters due the pandemic, it might be easy to go for Apple Watch if one can afford it and have access to it.
I got a FDI approved pulse-oximeter accidentally from Amazon(US)[1] after realizing almost every pulse-oximeters sold online where I live were making false claims[1].
Note though that the study does not use (or even mention) the oximeter. They use heart rate variability.
Edit: They probably also used the older model as the study was submitted in November and the Apple Watch with oximeter came out in September, and was seriously supply constrained.
