Software limitation can be easily bypassed by users

Oct 30, 2018 05:50 GMT  ·  By

The electrocardiogram feature on the Apple Watch Series 4 is without a doubt the top improvement that comes with this new-generation model, but given its purpose, clearance from health authorities in every state is required before it’s enabled.

For now, only the FDA offered the go-ahead for the ECG feature to be enabled on the new Apple Watch, so only American buyers are supposed to be able to run it.

But as recently discovered by 9to5mac, this isn’t necessarily the case, as Apple has turned to a software restriction in order to block access to ECG on the Apple Watch Series 4.

Basically, ECG is a region-dependent feature, which means that it’s automatically enabled when users configure the United States as the region of their device. In other words, if you live in any other country and choose the correct region when setting up the Apple Watch, you’re not getting ECG.

How to enable ECG outside the US

However, you can easily switch to the United States region at any moment, thus enabling ECG even if you live in a different country. To do this, just head over to:

Settings > General > Language & Region > Region And then choose the United States as your region. A device reboot may be required for the ECG feature to show up, but otherwise, you should be able to enjoy the full functionality that’s available in the United States.

Obviously, switching to the United States region may not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially because this change also comes with a number of other modifications on your device. For example, the date format changes according to the United States settings, while units are being switched to imperial.

Apple is projected to make the ECG feature available in other countries as well, but the ETA depends on the timing the company receives the go-ahead from the relevant authorities.