The last thing you want to happen after dropping hundreds of dollars on a wearable is to find out it doesn’t work with your body. But, that’s a common problem that people with wrist tattoos have run into since the advent of smartwatches and fitness trackers. As countless posts on device support pages and Reddit have documented over the years, tattooed skin and wearable sensors often don’t mix well.
One of the main problems that people experience is feeling the heartbeat. The wearable uses a light-based technique called photoplethysmography (PPG) to measure heart rate. That’s the green light you see when you turn your device on. But, tattoos can get in the way of that light, interfering with the reading. Another issue is wrist detection, which uses lights to detect that the tracker is on a person’s wrist (along with the accelerometer and electrical sensors). Strap a fitness tracker on a tattooed wrist, and the device may not register that it’s worn, requiring the wearer to repeatedly turn the device on whenever they want to connect to it.
It may seem silly that technology has advanced enough to respond to touch controls and provide personalized sleep training without the slightest disturbance of color, but the tattoo problem is not just a baseless gripe that consumers cling to. Device makers have acknowledged this and are advising consumers to avoid placing their trackers over tattoos.
“Tattoos (ink, pattern, saturation) can block light from the heart rate sensor, causing inaccurate or lost readings,” notes Garmin on its support page. “For best performance, wear the watch on skin that doesn’t have tattoos if possible.” Apple has issued similar notifications dating back to the release of the first Apple Watch.
Is there a solution?
Tattooed people have devised ways to get the most out of their smartwatches and fitness trackers, though none are necessarily ideal. The easiest? If the inside of your wrist doesn’t have a tattoo (or at least has larger areas of light skin), you can place the device there instead of on the upper arm. Likewise, if your other wrist doesn’t have tattoos, wear the device on that one. But if you are used to wearing a watch on a certain wrist for years, it will feel strange to change it.
As a quick fix, some people swear by epoxy bottle cap stickers or pieces of clear tape, either of which is placed over the sensors and fixes the problem inexplicably for many wearers. Reusable accessories designed to perform the same function have also seen some success. There’s also the option of using a chest strap if heart rate monitoring is all you’re looking for – and if you don’t have chest monitors. And, however, this is not a comfortable or convenient way to use a wearable in most everyday situations.
Ultimately, it will continue to be a problem until the sensors these watches and fitness trackers rely on are improved to deal with skin variations such as tattoo ink. Likewise, light-based sensors have been found to be unreliable in people with dark skin, highlighting the need for diversity in the research and development of this type of technology.
Undoubtedly, it seems that the Google Pixel Watch 4 can be much better at handling tattooed skin than its predecessors. There have been rumors that Samsung introduced an update a few years ago to improve things in this area, but the complaints of users of the scratched Galaxy Watch would suggest otherwise.
More research is needed
Identifying the problem theoretically is the first step to solving it, but unhelpfully, the reality is that the extent to which tattoos interfere with sensory learning is not consistent from one case to another. A study published in 2025 attempted to measure the difference in readings taken from devices worn on tattooed skin versus non-tattooed skin, and while the former was found to be inaccurate, the results were mixed.
The researchers used Polar Verity Sense and an armband, wearing participants with one device over the tattoo and one on the same arm in an area without the tattoo. Participants also wore a Polar H10 wristband heart rate monitor for baseline, as this style of wear is considered the most accurate. During the day, they were monitored while resting, walking at their own pace and running.
This revealed that the presence of tattoos had an effect on heart rate readings, but it depended on the activity level of the wearer, “with the greatest effect observed at rest and the difference decreasing as the intensity of exercise increases.” And in some cases, the researchers note, “the presence of a tattoo on the arm did not affect the estimation of the confirmation of the heart at all.” There are several variables to consider – such as ink color, saturation and depth – and as it stands today, there is not enough research into the nitty-gritty of the problem to come up with a solution.
