Can a £25 pulse oximeter really save your life? We test it out

Helen Rumbelow tries the pulse oximeter, which experts say is a game changer in health tech

As of about a week ago I had never heard of a “pulse oximeter”, and I was so new to the game I kept pronouncing it wrong, “oxy-meter” instead of “oxIM-eter”, like the doctors now promoting them. But then, after some scrabbling around on sold-out sites such as Amazon and Argos, mine arrived overnight from eBay, just £25 and it showed: a cheap plastic gewgaw that you would get out of a cracker.

A pulse oximeter is actually quite a good toy: I sat with my family watching The Invisible Man on TV while we took turns. It grips your finger like a weak baby crocodile, giving your pulse and oxygen saturation. The oxygen reading didn’t change much, but after every jump scare we’d check

Sponsored