New Blood-Related Health Features Rumored for Apple Watch

Hartley Charlton, writing for MacRumors:

Apple has been revealed to be the largest customer of the British electronics start-up Rockley Photonics, The Telegraph reports.

Rockley Photonics has developed non-invasive optical sensors for detecting multiple blood-related health metrics, including blood pressure, blood glucose, and blood alcohol levels, many of which are only normally detectable with more invasive dedicated medical equipment. Rockley's sensors beam infrared light through a user's skin, much like the existing sensors on the back of the Apple Watch for detecting heart rate and blood oxygen levels.

Rockley's disclosure that its biggest client is Apple came about as the company prepares to go public in New York. The company's filings said that Apple accounted for the majority of its revenue over the last two years and that it has an ongoing "supply and development agreement" with the company, under which it expects to continue to heavily rely on Apple for most of its revenue.

It’s never a great idea to read too much into Apple rumors, but I’m really excited by their strong focus on bringing health features to the Apple Watch, even if none of the individual features are revolutionarily impactful for me personally.

One health feature at a time, Apple is cementing the Apple Watch’s status as the best smartwatch available. They started with a heart rate sensor which is pretty much a given on any smartwatch or fitness tracker, but over time they’ve been adding to what the Apple Watch is able to detect and measure. The Apple Watch was able to not only check your heart rate rate, but alert you if it was unexpectedly high or low. Then they added fall detection so your watch could automatically call for help if you were unresponsive after a hard fall, which was an impressive and welcome feature, especially among older customers. But then the Series 4 came, when they added the ability to take an ECG and recognize signs of atrial fibrillation. This was the first medical function that was more specialized, and I think it marked a turning point in how Apple viewed the watch, adjusting their trajectory to more directly lead them down the health and fitness path. The following year, they added the ability to monitor noise levels to alert you when you could be at risk of damaging your hearing, and they added menstrual cycle tracking for women; both quite specific and not a concern for most wearers, but nice features to have if you want them. The year after that, they added the blood oxygen sensor for the Series 6, which again, was a highly specialized use case that isn’t likely to be used by the majority of wearers. The watch can also now use a variety of metrics to algorithmically calculate your cardio fitness, or VO2max.

Recent studies have even shown that the Apple Watch was able to detect COVID-19 up to a week before it showed up in lab tests based on changes to metrics the watch already measures, though this capability wasn’t rolled out by Apple.

Now, there are rumors that Apple could be eyeing more blood-related features, like blood alcohol levels, blood pressure, and blood sugar. The first of those three would be a fun (and potentially life saving) party trick for younger wearers. The blood pressure monitoring would be great for older people especially, and those with conditions where blood pressure may be a complication or indicator of other issues. But non-invasive blood glucose monitoring (without a finger prick) would be a real game changer for diabetics, and would also be useful in diagnosing new patients early to help them avoid more serious conditions. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and Apple is trying to pack as much prevention into the Apple Watch as possible. All three of these rumored features would undoubtedly save lives.

The point isn’t that Apple is adding health features that everyone wants or that everyone will rely on, but that they’re relentlessly focusing on health features. At this rate, within the next five to ten years, the Apple Watch will likely be capable of tracking most if not all major vital signs (I can’t imagine that body temperature is too far down the road), as well as diagnosing (with all the proper legal disclaimers) a wide swath of common medical conditions that someone could be suffering from. It’s a bit of a patchwork now, but if they continue down this path, the Apple Watch Series 15 could be well on its way to becoming a proactive WebMD alternative that tells you what’s wrong, rather than leading you down rabbit holes. Imagine the peace of mind you’d have, knowing that a device you wear for convenience is also on the lookout, ready to alert you to any potential health problems you aren’t capable of noticing for yourself.

The Apple Watch is still a young product, and I’m very excited for its future.