Performance of a Wearable Ring in Controlled Hypoxia: A Prospective Observational Study

Background Over recent years, technological advances in wearables have allowed for continuous home monitoring of heart rate and oxygen saturation. These devices have primarily been used for sports and general wellness and may not be suitable for medical decision-making, especially in saturations below 90% and in patients with dark skin color. Wearable clinical-grade saturation of peripheral oxygen (SpO2) monitoring can be of great value to patients with chronic diseases, enabling them and their clinicians to better manage their condition with reliable real-time and trend data. Objective This study aimed to determine the SpO2 accuracy of a wearable ring pulse oximeter compared with arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) in a controlled hypoxia study based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 80601-2-61:2019 standard over the range of 70%-100% SaO2 in volunteers with a broad range of skin color (Fitzpatrick I to VI) during nonmotion conditions. In parallel, accuracy was compared with a calibrated clinical-grade reference pulse oximeter (Masimo Radical-7). Acceptable medical device accuracy was defined as a maximum of 4% root mean square error (RMSE) per the ISO 80601-2-61 standard and a maximum of 3.5% RMSE per the US Food and Drug Administration guidance. Methods We performed a single-center, blinded hypoxia study of the test device in 11 healthy volunteers at the Hypoxia Research Laboratory, University of California at San Francisco, under the direction of Philip Bickler, MD, PhD, and John Feiner, MD. Each volunteer was connected to a breathing apparatus for the administration of a hypoxic gas mixture. To facilitate frequent blood gas sampling, a radial arterial cannula was placed on either wrist of each participant. One test device was placed on the index finger and another test device was placed on the fingertip. SaO2 analysis was performed using an ABL-90 multi-wavelength oximeter. Results For the 11 participants included in the analysis, there were 236, 258, and 313 SaO2-SpO2 data pairs for the test device placed on the finger, the test device placed on the fingertip, and the reference device, respectively. The RMSE of the test device for all participants was 2.1% for either finger or fingertip placement, while the Masimo Radical-7 reference pulse oximeter RMSE was 2.8%, exceeding the standard (4% or less) and the Food and Drug Administration guidance (3.5% or less). Accuracy of SaO2-SpO2 paired data from the 4 participants with dark skin in the study was separately analyzed for both test device placements and the reference device. The test and reference devices exceeded the minimum accuracy requirements for a medical device with RMSE at 1.8% (finger) and 1.6% (fingertip) and for the reference device at 2.9%. Conclusions The wearable ring meets an acceptable standard of accuracy for clinical-grade SpO2 under nonmotion conditions without regard to skin color. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05920278; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05920278