It’s the teardown you’ve been waiting for.
The coolest of felines over at iFixit finally got their mitts on an Apple Watch and a full teardown reveals that the much-vaunted heart rate monitor is actually capable of acting as a pulse oximeter, allowing it to calculate the oxygen content of your blood by measuring how much infrared light is absorbed. This feature could become useful in future generations, but is not yet utilized in the first generation of the Apple Watch.
The teardown revealed that even the antenna connecting the Digital Crown to the rest of the watch is apparently made of gold, even on the low end models of the device.
iFixit’s efforts demonstrate the specialist’s tools needed to open the wearable. Following the removal of the display, the battery can be easily removed and the rest of the Apple Watch can be opened and studied.
The teardown and analysis is ongoing, so check back here for additional details as they become available.