In recent weeks, some readers of the MacMagazine informed us that, from one moment to the next, they started to have access to the electrocardiogram (ECG) In yours Brazilian Apple Watches. Quickly analyzing this should not happen, since the feature – launched with the Apple Watch Series 4 – has not yet been released in the country.
How, then, are tweets like the one below appearing here and there?
There is no way to say for sure what actually happened, but analyzing the pattern of our readers’ reports, we suspect that Apple changed the behavior of the activation (more precisely, of the activation information itself) of the ECG in some recent update of the iOS / watchOS.
How it worked
Until then, Brazilian users had no way to activate the ECG in Brazil, regardless of whether the watch was national or foreign. You could only do this by buying a watch in some of the countries where the feature is released and activating it in those places, before returning to Brazil.
If by chance you had to change your watch, when pulling the backup for the new Apple Watch, you would have to activate the feature again – something impossible if you are / live in Brazil.
How it’s working now
In some recent version of iOS / watchOS, the system has apparently save to iCloud the information that the ECG has already been activated by the user. Thus, when restoring or purchasing a new watch and configuring it with your account, the ECG continues to function normally, without the need for reactivation.
Storing this information in iCloud makes a lot of sense, as it allows a watch owner with ECG enabled in their home country to be able to use the feature if they need to exchange / buy a new watch anywhere else.
And it is worth noting here that there is no need to pull a previous backup anymore; just log in to iCloud that already has this ECG information stored, so the feature will work smoothly and without having to be activated again.
ECG working on national models
The fact that the ECG is now linked to iCloud is one thing, but recently readers like the Anderson Ribeiro, from the tweet above, began to notice the feature popping up on their national Apple Watches.
That, yes, is quite a change – after all, until now there was simply no way to use the ECG on an Apple Watch purchased in Brazil, pulling or not its previous backup, and also even with the activation already listed in the person’s iCloud.
News coming around?
Some readers are excited by the idea of ​​having ECG on their Brazilian watches and are trying to activate the feature for the first time. This, however, is still it’s not possible.
The only novelty, as explained above, is that who already had a foreign Apple Watch with the ECG on (and only in those cases), it now appears to be receiving the feature on its national clocks through the activation that is already on iCloud.
Last February, we reported that Apple is still hadn’t asked the ECG record for Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency); at the beginning of April, in a new contact, the agency informed us that nothing had changed in this scenario – it is important to note that, once the request for regularization of the ECG is filed, the analysis takes an average of 60 days (if all safety requirements are met) efficiency have been met by the company, ie). That is…
THE MacMagazine today (11/5) again requested information from Anvisa and, if the agency reports something different, we will update this article.
On a related note, at the end of last year we taught how to activate the ECG on American watches – or from some country where the feature already works – even on Brazilian soil. Unfortunately, according to reports from multiple readers, this is no longer possible; Apple closed the loophole used by the iMazing app.
Apple Watch Series 5
in Apple
Cash price: from R $ 3,599.10Installed price: up to 12x R $ 333.25Sizes: 40mm or 44mmMaterials: aluminum, stainless steel, titanium or ceramicFeatures: GPS or GPS + CellularColors: diverseLaunch: September 2019
