Apple’s plan to add a blood pressure sensor to the Apple Watch has been delayed to 2024, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday. The company has been testing the feature for four years now, and due to difficulty with accuracy, the blood pressure sensor is delayed for two years from now.
Bloomberg’s report cites that the feature has “hit some snags” and that the technology “isn’t expected to be ready” until 2024. This means that we would have to wait for another two years until a major health feature arrives on the Apple Watch Series 10:
“The company has teams working on an updated sensor and software for the Apple Watch that would determine if a user has high blood pressure, but accuracy has been a challenge during testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The feature has been planned for at least four years, but it’s probably two years away from hitting the market and may slip until 2025, they said.”
In addition to the blood pressure sensor, the company is working on a non-invasive blood sugar monitoring for the Apple Watch, though it is still under early development and no slated date has been targeted. Meanwhile, the company is also developing improved support for third-party glucose meters on the smartwatch as well as in the iPhone Health app.
The latter can be expected as part of the upcoming features on watchOS 9. The new software version is also expected to add a “low power” mode that saves battery life on some Apple Watch models. Other health add-ons that are coming at least for this year include new women’s health, sleep, fitness, and medication management features.
According to Mark Gurman, Apple will announce new health-tracking features for both iOS 16 and watchOS 9 during the opening day of WWDC 2022. While the former will gain new notification features that could involve a brand new Focus Mode.
