The Apple Watch Series 10 was unveiled by Apple at the company’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ launch event last week. While the new smartwatch and its predecessor will offer support for a new sleep apnea detection feature, another capability that was said to be in development – blood pressure monitoring – was not announced by the iPhone maker at the event. The feature is supported on some previously launched smartwatch models by rivals, and it is still expected to come to a future version of the Apple Watch.
In the latest edition of his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes that Apple was planning to introduce support for blood pressure monitoring with the Apple Watch Series 10. The journalist cites a source who says Apple’s changes to the design of the latest models caused some problems with the feature during testing “specifically with the updated design for the Series 10.”
As a result, the ability to check blood pressure levels will not be available on the Apple Watch Series 10, making the new sleep apnea detection feature the first major health feature to be introduced in years. It is designed to warn users who may have a medical condition that results in breathing stopping and restarting while sleeping, which may cause them to wake up frequently.
Sleep apnea detection wasn’t the only health feature announced at Apple’s hardware launch event on September 9. Although the company hasn’t introduced a successor to the AirPods Pro (second generation) model, it has updated the True Wireless Stereo (TWS) headset. A new feature that allows wearers to use them as medical grade hearing aids.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week approved the wireless headset for use as an over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid, making the second-generation AirPods the first such product to receive US regulatory approval. . New guidelines introduced for these products in 2022.
