They look at a few studies too and asked around companies if they handled the issues mentioned in those studies, the most positive result was that some models from one company are now better)probably some of the others are not).
IMO seems that the certifications for this devices, especially for the ones used by medical stuff to decide things need to be better tested.
Other interesting point that I did not consider is you can have a device with an average error under a safe threshold but that gives a much above average error for some groups putting this groups at risk if the people using this devices are not warned about this issues.
Nonin created the first of these back in the '90s, so I pulled one of their spec sheets from 2016 (https://www.nonin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NoninConnec...) which explicitly mentions the pigmentation issue along with nail polish, poor circulation, and breathing issues. From that, this isn't exactly a new or unknown thing since commercial products have been working around this for some time. I wasn't able to find an industry standard for testing on these, so maybe the article should cite that as an opportunity to improve a product or add a new method?
> I wasn't able to find an industry standard for testing on these, so maybe the article should cite that as an opportunity to improve a product or add a new method?
It is a long article with many studies cited so I can't check all of those, IMO "the readings can be affected by skin tone" is not something that is sufficient for a medical device , what should a nurse or doctor do? There is no numeric value so what does that mean? is the device useless if you have dark sin or is it 2% wrong or as the article suggests the error is non linear and increases if you are suffering with low oxygen?
What I would do if I would sell this products is test with a few ranges of skin tones, and if needed have a switch on the device that you have to set for a certain level or if that is to expensive print instead of a number an interval and have the user trained to read that.
IMO seems that the certifications for this devices, especially for the ones used by medical stuff to decide things need to be better tested.
Other interesting point that I did not consider is you can have a device with an average error under a safe threshold but that gives a much above average error for some groups putting this groups at risk if the people using this devices are not warned about this issues.