Apple Watch Series 6 with Tattoos

Are people mainly concerned with Wrist Detection for use with Apple Pay, etc?

I still have Wrist Detection activated but have the Passcode Lock knocked off to avoid the watch 'locking-up' when on my left, more heavily tattooed wrist.

As it happens, I switched wrists again last night (from left wrist to the inside of right wrist) for a Rowing workout and the watch logged the activity without issue (and didn't pause, as it was doing time and time again on my left wrist). However, it couldn't create the heart rate chart, as it didn't / couldn't take enough readings - even though it gave me BPM readings during and after the workout...

Can't help but feel that, despite all the other issues, we are all dealing with tech that suits itself more often than not.

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.

It's interesting that Whoop appears to have figured out how to detect all the same heart rate data through tattoos. Can anyone else confirm that the Whoop device does what Apple Watch cannot, work with tattoos?

"I have full sleeves with tattoos over my wrist and hands. I wear an Apple Watch on my left wrist and the whoop on my right wrist. I have the same problems you mentioned with the Apple Watch not being able to read through my tattoos but have just come to accept and deal with it. I have not had that problem at all with the Whoop . I’ve used both the Whoop 2.0 and 3.0 without any issues." - Whoop Reddit Page

https://www.reddit.com/r/whoop/comments/dd0x9o/will_woop_work_with_tattoos/

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.

Just purchased series 6 for my fiancé for Christmas and he has a tattoo that wraps around his wrist. We couldn’t figure out why the watch kept locking until coming across this. Sadly, we might have to return it.

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 thought it was that the solo loop was too big and just went with it. I tried a tighter loop on which was way too tight. I would have returned it but it was past the returns date. It’s ok I like my mechanical watches (:

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 don't want it to lock automatically so that's a win.

Heart rate tracking I don't use.

I charge at night so don't sleep track.

Noise measurements do work.

So as I say I've yet to see any negatives :)

ok, how about this...for everything that Im not able to use that I would be with a fully functional Apple Watch they discount it?

That’s not how it works...

If I’m paying that much money for a watch then I should get to choose what features I wanted to enable and disable not Apple.

Apple, fix the issue and you’ll have my business back—Im an Apple loyalist. Laptop, iPad, Apple Pencil, iPhone, Airpods...

Well, you've presented the features that I have disabled by turning off wrist detection. I explained how they aren't relevant to me. So what is the 'much more' that I'm missing out on.

Regardless, it doesn't work so it's somewhat irrelevant. It is what it is. Buy another brand if that has the features that are important to you. I'm sure Apple won't be that upset, it's not like they've tried to address it in the last 5.5 years.

The epoxy sticker worked well for two years on my Series 3 and now I'm allergic to it. I have tried cleaning it and giving it a few weeks off but when I put a new epoxy sticker on, boom...allergic. I actually get blisters. Does anyone have any idea of an alternative?

I can not believe that apple support can not solve this problem with tattoos and apple watch... are they even trying? I have been an apple fun for years .. this is disappointing..

if a silicone sticker can do the job why cant apple solve the problem or at least publish formally the incapability of the watch 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

So, who else saw the latest update ‘unlock phone using watch if mask detected’?

Brilliant I thought. Finally a fix to the 2020/21 covid issue.

I eagerly updated both phone and watch aaaaaaand….. oh ffs. Needs wrist detection on to work.

I hope everyone who received the Apple Watch survey mention fixing the wrist detection with tattoos issue??!