What you need to know
- Apple has been granted a patent that could bring blood pressure monitoring to the Apple Watch.
- It appears that the patent may be part of a larger project the company is working on.
As reported by Patently Apple, Apple has been granted a second major patent that could bring blood pressure monitoring to the Apple Watch. The company received the first patent related to the feature back in December.
According to the patents, Apple's blood pressure montioring could be done in a non-invasive way.
As a quick review of the base invention, Apple's patent generally relates to the measuring and monitoring of blood pressure. More specifically, embodiments may determine and apply one or more correction factors for calculating or adjusting a measured blood pressure to provide for a more accurate blood pressure measurement. This may be particularly beneficial with blood pressure measurement devices that may be worn by a user that non-invasively measure and monitor blood pressure of a user.
While blood pressure montoring in the Apple Watch is definitely one of the major health features expected to come to the device, shrinking the monitor down into the watch will be difficult.
Further, Apple's invention provides non-invasive devices and methods for determining an pressure of blood within a cardiovascular system of a user. It may be desirable to reduce a bulkiness of current blood pressure measurement devices to make blood pressure measurements more convenient. While reducing the bulkiness of current blood pressure measurement devices may be desirable, doing so may come with additional challenges.
The outlet highlights that Apple's new patent may be part of a larger project that could include either blood pressure monitoring being built into the Apple Watch and perhaps even a new device.
Apple's second granted patent regarding blood pressure monitoring is part of a larger project on this subject. Back on December 10, 2020, Patently Apple posted a patent application report titled "Apple Reveals an all-new Wearable Blood Pressure Device with an Inflatable Cuff and Controller Interface." The patent figures presented below are from that patent.
The Apple Watch Series 6 added blood oxygen monitoring in addition to the already present health features like fall detection, heart rate monitoring, ECG, and more. Blood pressure measurement and monitoring is one of the most expected and requested features to come next.
