According to an update from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple won’t release the Apple Watch smart watch with blood pressure monitoring features until 2024. The company has run into a number of problems that won’t make the technology ready until 2024 at the earliest.
The main problem concerns the accuracy of the measurements if the user has high blood pressure. Moreover, the release of a watch with such a feature could eventually be postponed until 2025. Apple reportedly wants to go its own way with blood pressure readings. The Apple Watch will not give specific systolic and diastolic readings, instead simply alerting Apple Watch owners that they may have hypertension.
Apple also has teams working on adding non-invasive blood sugar monitoring to its wearable devices, but the feature is said to be “a few years away” and a “target release year has not yet been set.” In the meantime, Apple wants to improve support for third-party glucose meters.
Before the blood pressure monitoring tool launches, the iPhone’s Health app will receive an update that will add advanced sleep tracking, medication management and new women’s cycle monitoring features.
A body temperature sensor may appear on the Apple Watch this year. Initially, this feature may only be used to help with pregnancy planning and may eventually determine if the user has a body temperature higher than normal, but, as with blood pressure, is unlikely to show the actual value.
The atrial fibrillation detection feature will also be improved, it will be able to count how often a person is in a state of atrial fibrillation over a certain period. This feature will appear in watchOS 9 this fall.
Also new in watchOS 9 will be a reduced power mode, which allows the smart watch to run a limited set of apps and functions while consuming less battery power. Many of the built-in watch faces will also be updated, and new workout types and additional running metrics will be added to the Workout app.