I’ve recently purchased a Moxy and I’m wondering if those who have used one for a significant period of time believe it can be used to gauge recovery status? I noticed my SmO2 was frustratingly low for the first 10-14 days. During this period I was sick (head cold) and was doing harder (threshold) work. Recently, I’ve noticed a significant uptick in SmO2 values as I’ve recovered from the cold and focused exclusively on zone 2 type work over a period of approximately 10 days.
Thanks!
As far as I know the oxygen uptake capability does not change because of short-term training and recovery. In the long run, your oxygen uptake can increase because of improved stroke rate, hart volume, blood volume.
Your cold is the most likely explanation for the sudden change as ‘part of the oxygen uptake chain’ was not functioning optimally.
(you may see changes in respiration rate shortly after exercising, which in turn can produce small changes in saturation. But these changes are small (less < 5%), otherwise…call 911 
)
@fazel1010 Once you have used the device for a while I think you will really see that the data will attach itself to your perceived exertion if you are honest in judging that exertion.
I would suggest while healthy, create a baseline test up to around 85% of max heart rate, this way you can have something to compare to when coming out of big blocks of training, sickness or time away from the bike.
This can help you see when you are ready to get back to training when the numbers get close to that baseline.
Just remember that you need to look at the trends on the moxy. If you are careful to place the device in exactly the same spot you should receive similar values day to day, but not always. So looking at how the trends of the steps in your test change is important.
This is where looking at the slope of smo2 relative to the workload (or average smo2 for the step) can help you to see where you have availabillity or not.
If you look at the post below
I have some different examples of a test, not exactly related to this post but how you can look at the moxy data.
What type of head unit do you use?