Questions about Contec CMS-50E pulse oximeter...

Seems like the CMS-50 Pulse-Ox has had lots of favorable reviews here, and is pretty attractively priced at about $135 shipped from the States or $100 shipped from Hong Kong on eBay...

Two questions:

1) Anybody had problems or success running the Contec PC software on a Mac under emulation? Seems like the USB drivers might be a bit funky and potentially cause problems.

2) Anybody tried the bluetooth version of this? Any comments about how well the bluetooth connection worked? Can you do live monitoring via bluetooth, or only download and report as if it was hooked up with a USB cable?

Thanks.

pfbz wrote:1) Anybody had problems or success running the Contec PC software on a Mac under emulation? Seems like the USB drivers might be a bit funky and potentially cause problems.

2008 aluminum MB, OS 10.5.8, VmWare 3.1.1, both drivers and software work just fine

I just got mine yesterday. Played around with it and was impressed. Software wouldn't run on my home Win 2K machine, but it works fine on my office WIn XP SP3. Data presentation is very professional looking. It appears to have been written for clinical use.

Took the oximeter with me on a hike after work yesterday. Checked my numbers periodically and was surprised that while I was slogging up the trail at 145 bpm, my O2 level was still 96%. I could hyperventilate and get it up to 99%, or hold my breath and it would drop below 95%. Collected data while I slept last night and it really tells a story. Haven't yet correlated it with events from my APAP software (ResMed S9), but I could see things were happening.

The device is very impressive, and a good value if you need the data recording capability. Hope eventually there will be software upgrades available.

While you're sleeping, it collects data which can be downloaded via a USB cable to your computer in the morning. Didn't see anything about Bluetooth compatibility. Not mentioned in the manual, except for a picture with a caption showing a separate Wireless Transmission/Reception module that didn't come with the unit.

Very slick!

[Edit: I see the Bluetooth transmission module is a separate $40 accessory. The manual's a little vague.]