Apple Watch Series 6 with Tattoos

If you go to amazon and search "Beadaholique 100-Piece Epoxy Stickers for Bottle Cap Pendants, 1-Inch, Clear

" you can get 100 bottle cap stickers. Link to the ones I purchased https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AFRWIRQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Slap 1 over the sensor and the watch works in wrist detection mode. I have a black tattoo on my wrist and these little caps work perfectly. 100 caps cost 8 to 9 bucks. Plus caps protests the sensor incase dirt gets between your skin and the sensor on the bottom of the watch. I have apple se watch I bought in March of 2021 running latest software.

Apple has been aware of this problem for years. I doubt they do anything about it, just not enough people complaining about it

I’m going to be somewhat contradictory to the rest of the comments in this thread. Both my arms and hands are covered in tattoos (black and grey ink) and both the series 3 and 4 did not work on my wrists.

I purchased the series 6 two days ago and I have had zero issues whatsoever. Both the ECG and blood oxygen monitors seem to be working also.

I am planning a wrist tattoo where i normally wear my watch. I tested out my series 6 on my opposite arm which is fully sleeved and all of the features work fine. My tattooed arm is fully color. no skin tone left at all and all of the features worked. ecg, blood oxygen, heart rate etc. i will get my other wrist tattoo this weekend and update the post if anything changes. hope this helps

I bought and returned the 6. I loved it, but as mentioned before, for the price I could not justify the issues. The people that say they have full sleeves and it works fine, I wonder the color, shading, and placement of their tattoo. I bought a Garmin Vivoactive 4 in hopes of getting the some of the same benefits like Blood Oxygen/O2 levels, sleep monitoring, HR monitor, etc, but found it was inconsistent also. The integration with Apple iPhone was intolerable, also and the App Store lacked in comparison. I returned the Garmin, also. I might give the 6 a try again and wear it on the underside of my wrist using the epoxy caps people are mentioning, complete with a bumper and screen protector, but for now it's a simple Casio G-Shock GBD-800 to use as a watch on my left wrist, and on my right wrist a WHOOP strap that monitors my HR, Sleep, and "Strain." I hope that this is something Apple is able to fix or alter in the future.

I tried the stickers on my 6 series. no luck. I've taken to wearing it on my right wrist now. I'm about 3 weeks or so in now and still look to my left.

It is a far better user experience the watch not locking all the time.

Three size variations of epoxy stickers later - and sorry to report that they do not work with the Series 6. They also added a little bit of annoying bulk to the underside of the watch, which would've irritated me no end, even if they had done the trick. Overall, I just can't stomach the idea of having to apply stickers to a €400+ watch so that it functions correctly.

All said, I am keeping my Series 6: it tracks my steps and activity levels and I have tiny patches of un-tattooed skin on the inside and outside of my right wrist where it functions as it should, so I switch it over to there when using the Workout app.

I disabled the Passcode Lock, so that it stops locking when worn on the left wrist (which is where it stays most of the time) and while the watch still thinks it isn't even on me most of the time, I don't use Apple Pay or anything like that, so it isn't as irksome as I thought it would get. Also, I always have phone close, so I don't need to be getting notifications on the watch, too.

Currently awaiting an adjustable strap from the Apple Store, so that the transfer from left to right wrist when about to exercise is a smoother process; it's a little finicky with the solo loop I purchased along with the watch itself.

I have full sleeves and have owned three generations of Apple Watches, so I figured I'd add my experience FWIW.

On both of my wrists, just under where I would wear a watch, I have the names of my children tattooed in black in an old English style script. the placement puts the letters directly under the watch. With both the original Apple Watch and the Series 3 it was fairly easy to get the watch positioned just right so that the sensors could see through the gaps in my tattoo. Of course any shifting would cause it to lock up again, so I have to wear the watch fairly tight so it can't move around. I'm used to wearing my watches this way, so it doesn't bother me at all.

The Series 6 watch is a lot more finicky about placement over my tattoo. It has to be positioned just right for wrist detection to work properly, and even though I wear it tight against my wrist, I find that it sometimes shifts and locks up on me. At most I find this happening a couple times a day. More often in the morning, because that is when I first put it on, and it may take a couple tries to find the right spot. I think the problem is due to the fact that there are more optical sensors on the back of the series 6, and it is harder to get all of them lined up with a gap in my tattoo.

At this point, it is not a huge pain for me. Once it is adjusted in the morning, I don't usually have that many lockups during the day. Workouts seem to be fine as well, but most of mine are bike workouts and don't involve much wrist movement. I enjoy my Apple Watch and use it so much (I wear one practically all the time since I started using my old one for sleep tracking), that if wrist detection ever became a major issue with my tattoo, I would seriously consider getting laser treatment to lighten the spot right under the sensors. No one's gonna see it anyway with my watch covering it.

Whoop worked fine on my bold black wrist tattoos. The Apple Watch also reads my heart rate just fine. The issue is “wrist detect. “ wrist detect thinks the watch isn’t on you, so it pauses all the activities. You can use that watch with wrist detect disabled, but this pretty much makes it useless for tracking workouts.

That’s exactly the issue. Wrist Detection and wrist tattooing isn’t at all compatible. My watch (Series 6) still tracks activity, movement, steps and heart rate - but I switch to inside my left wrist (where I have a tiny gap of untattooed skin) for workout tracking.

I must be a week or so in now of going back to the correct (left for me) wrist and turning wrist detection off. So far no negative issues whatsoever.

@drew turn off wrist detection. It’s working well for me.

Having turned off wrist detection I'm yet to see any negatives of this.

After spending 5 mins looking for my watch this morning (it was on my right wrist...) I’ve turned wrist detection off and gone back to my left (tattooed) wrist.

I have a heavily inked tattoo where the sensor for my Apple Watch sits and it has issues as well. If I put the watch on my other arm where I do not have any ink it works just fine.

i’ve been using bottlecap epoxy stickers for 5 years and had no issues.