2024 Apple Watch with new design rumored to get sleep apnea & blood pressure sensing

I'd love to know how Apple is going to measure blood pressure from a watch.  No, I'm not going to do any googling on this topic.

I already have a $20 Chinese knock off I found on Amazon that I wear on my right wrist (opposite my WATCH Series 6 on my left wrist)  that does blood pressure. Nobody notices I’m wearing two smartwatches. 129/76. Battery lasts a week.

Apple’s approach is really interesting.

I measure my BP once a day. If I get an average higher than normal reading, I tend to focus on physiological approaches to mitigating it (losing weight, reducing alcohol and sodium consumption, exercising etc).

What this approach does not tell me is hypertensive episodes during the day. This is where Apple’s approach - focusing on trends - could be very powerful. 

I take a BP measurement at the same point in time every day, which tells me what my blood pressure is at that point in time in the day. Trends over time are simply what the reading is at that point in time in the day (first thing in the morning before coffee - a point in time when I am very relaxed). It doesn’t tell me over the course of the day when I might be experiencing hypertension.

Constant measurement, as Apple’s approach, can tell you in what situations and circumstances in the day you might experience hypertension. You can then bring in methods in those situations to reduce the hypertension (such as breathing, hydrating, guided relaxation etc).

Although it may not give you a precisely accurate reading, it doesn’t really matter when trends are the focus.

dymmas said:

Apple’s approach is really interesting.

I measure my BP once a day. If I get an average higher than normal reading, I tend to focus on physiological approaches to mitigating it (losing weight, reducing alcohol and sodium consumption, exercising etc).

What this approach does not tell me is hypertensive episodes during the day. This is where Apple’s approach - focusing on trends - could be very powerful. 

I take a BP measurement at the same point in time every day, which tells me what my blood pressure is at that point in time in the day. Trends over time are simply what the reading is at that point in time in the day (first thing in the morning before coffee - a point in time when I am very relaxed). It doesn’t tell me over the course of the day when I might be experiencing hypertension.

Constant measurement, as Apple’s approach, can tell you in what situations and circumstances in the day you might experience hypertension. You can then bring in methods in those situations to reduce the hypertension (such as breathing, hydrating, guided relaxation etc).

Although it may not give you a precisely accurate reading, it doesn’t really matter when trends are the focus.

I follow the same logic as you when it comes to health monitoring. 

If the device isn't medically approved but is calbrated for its task (not just spewing out pie in the sky) then trends are what count, along with patterns (for which AI can be great for delving into).

They are good alarm bells to nudge you to seeing a doctor. 

Obviously the less invasive the better and ideally collating data from various sensors at the same time. 

I'm convinced that breath analysis is going to be one of the big jumps in overall health monitoring.

For blood pressure monitoring there are a few variants on the market. Moving away from the classic arm cuff, there is an option to place the cuff into the strap of a watch but that requires placing a pump into the watch itself, adding a bit of bulk. 

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/huawei-watch-d

The advantage of that is that it's far more likely you won't skip a reading and it great for readings while you are asleep. 

It will all boil down to the user's use case and need for accuracy but having options is great.