Compact, light-weight and stylish pulse oximeter, namely PO3 by iHealth, can be viewed as both the stand-alone, fingertip healthcare gadget and wireless companion for your iOS device to invasively receive the vital information on the ability to absorb oxygen by hemoglobin in your blood flow (BF), BF Perfusion Index and pulse rate. After experimenting with unit it does a good job, but if you intent to pare iHealth PO3 with iPhone/ iPad / iPod touch, be aware of following: it syncs only via Bluetooth LE/ Smart protocol to newer iOS devices supporting Bluetooth 4.0. So, if you're accustomed to pairing Bluetooth devices within the system-wide Bluetooth settings it will not work. As a rule of thumb, connect your iPhone / iPad / iPod touch to PO3 unit directly from SPO2 app granted for free by iHealth. It is advisable to set the free user account for ihealthlabs.com that secures cloud storage of your vital data.
- For example, if you want to use the iHealth P03 with iPhone 5s, do the following:
- First make sure you install SPO2 app from Apple Store.
- Toggle ON the Bluetooth on iPhone.
- Toggle ON Wi-Fi on iPhone, if you want to trasfer data into cloud storage. (Mind you, iHealth Wireless Pulse Oximeter can store up to 100 measurements, those can be uploaded any time you want)
- Launch SPO2 app by tapping pertaining icon the Home Screen.
- Shortly press the button on iHealth Oximeter and wait a fractions of second while iPhone connects to the unit . Once connected the green Bluetooth sign on PO3 Oximeter will shine.
It may seem silly at first, but one should always keep eyes on the remaining battery capacity (RBC) of PO3 displayed for only a few seconds underneath of the Home Page of the SPO2 app. This due to the fact that PO3 Oximeter has a build-in 3.7, 300mAh Li-ion battery that responds positively to the following conditions:
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- The RBC value must not be dropped to low (less than 10% is very risky as lithium-ion cell being near its critical voltage drops the charge very sharply. As a result the battery may have no juice to start new charging cycle).
- The full discharges of PO3 unit should be avoided when possible. Instead, gadget should be charged more often. There is no concern of battery's memory when applying unscheduled charges. A high residual charge before recharge is a benefit rather than a disadvantage for chemistry of battery in iHealth Oximeter. Besides the PO3's battery being a one cell Li-ion unit does not require the full recharge cycles used to calibrate multi-cells batteries.
- The best practice is to keep PO3's battery between 40% and 80% of full capacity. It takes around 65 min to charge from 40% to 80 % when using USB port. Mind you, after Li-ion battery is charged to 80% capacity it switches to trickle charging mode with a potential to cause plating of metallic lithium, a condition that renders the cell unstable. So, if you want your Oximeter to last, don’t charge it all the way.
In very rare cases P03 oximeter may stuck and pose some awkward questions for you. To revive the unit press its button, keep pressing for 20 - 30 sec, then release it. You may need to repeat such procedure a few times until noticeable result.