Not sure what's the return period in your country. We also don't know when a hypothetical price drop would happen. Might want to consider returning it just before the return period ends, just in case?
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Apple Reportedly Planning Multiple New Apple Watch Health Features, Including Temperature and Blood-Pressure Monitoring
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Ah well I'll just have to keep upgrading then. Most I've ever managed to skip is one generation between the series 0 and the series 3. But since the Series 3 I've upgraded every year.
Not that this really matters... I think the speed of the pressure transient in the bloodstream can only tell you the blood pressure differential between the Systolic and Diastolic.
Apple is planning to add a raft of new health features to the Apple Watch, including blood-pressure trends, a thermometer for fertility and sleep tracking, sleep apnea detection, and diabetes detection, as well as a number of updates for existing models, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Sources who claim to be familiar with Apple's plans and have access to internal company documents told the Wall Street Journal about the company's development of a large number of new Apple Watch health features in detail. Most of these new health monitoring functions are not expected to arrive before 2022.
Apple is said to be considering adding a thermometer to the Apple Watch for health monitoring purposes as soon as next year. The thermometer's features are purportedly based around fertility planning to give women insights into their ovulation cycle and improved detection of patterns when tracking sleep. Further in the future, there are also plans for this sensor to detect when a user has a fever.
The blood-pressure monitoring feature reportedly detects when pressure is increasing and can highlight the presence of hypertension. Apple intended to release the feature next year but has experienced difficulties in perfecting the technology, according to the report.
As opposed to the common methods that measure blood pressure using an inflatable cuff wrapped around the upper arm, Apple's system measures the speed of the wave of a heartbeat through a user's arteries using sensors. The Apple Watch would then show a user how their blood pressure is trending, but would not be able to provide a baseline systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurement, leading some Apple employees have to raise questions with managers over the usefulness of the feature.
Apple is also purportedly studying blood-pressure monitoring with an additional cuffless device that could provide a more precise reading without inflating.
Further in the future, the company apparently has plans to implement detection for sleep apnea using the existing blood-oxygen sensor, but there have been challenges with taking readings often enough without draining the Apple Watch's battery life. Apple also intends to provide medical guidance when the Apple Watch detects low blood-oxygen levels.
Plans to bring detection of diabetes to the Apple Watch are also underway, but the company is said to have faced challenges with non-invasive blood glucose measuring and struggled to make progress. Apple is apparently working with the National University of Singapore on a research project to examine lifestyle coaching for pre-diabetic people who wear blood-glucose monitoring devices made by other companies.
The report cautioned that these new Apple Watch health features are currently under study and development at Apple and could ultimately be delayed or canceled.
Separately, Apple is also reportedly putting pressure on the FDA to approve a number of updates for existing Apple Watch models. One update would allow people with atrial fibrillation to use the Apple Watch to track their condition over time. Another update would allow the Apple Watch to alert users if their blood-oxygen levels drop.
Currently, the Apple Watch can only look for signs of atrial fibrillation in people who do not have the condition and blood-oxygen monitoring can only provide a reading without alerts for changes.
Article Link: Apple Reportedly Planning Multiple New Apple Watch Health Features, Including Temperature and Blood-Pressure Monitoring
I was going to upgrade from my series 4 as the battery health is diminishing but but maybe hold out one more year.
Maybe increase the EKG system to be more like the Kardia reader where it can show PVCs (premature ventricular contractions), SVEs (supraventricular Ectopy) and Wide QRS.
Maybe increase the EKG system to be more like the Kardia reader where it can show PVCs (premature ventricular contractions), SVEs (supraventricular Ectopy) and Wide QRS.
Seems like we would have to wait till 10 or 12 to get all those rumored features.
The technical problem, as I understand it, is that glucose molecules are nondescript. They don't have a clearly unique way of refracting light, so they can't be detected by shining light from an external sensor (at least for now, and possibly for a long time to come). I remember Apple was working on this for some time; so was Google, with a proposed solution using a sensor in contact lenses to analyze your tears. But that Google effort was shelved last year. It looks like no one is making much headway.
But for diabetics, non-invasive blood glucose monitoring would be the be-all, end-all.
The article mentioned something about having the Watch work with existing blood glucose monitors, and that makes sense. It actually already does that: my Dexcom CGM sends data to my iPhone, which forwards it to the Apple Watch, so I have access to my current blood sugar on my wrist already. The next version of the Dexcom, the G7, supposedly will transmit directly to the Watch without needing the phone, though I have some questions about how that will work with alarms. Anyhow, I would really be interested in what added value Apple would create.
BUT...
...currently, neither Medicare nor any private insurance I've heard about will cover the Dexcom G6 (the industry leader, and one of the few the FDA has cleared for use in dosing decisions, if not the only) for Type 2 diabetics. Only Type 1's. So if Apple is going to have the Watch work with existing CGMs, then that alone will not help the millions of Type 2 sufferers out there. Something more will have to change.
It is easier, though you have to work at it, to get the Freestyle Libre, which is not exactly a CGM in the strictest sense. If the Apple Watch can close that gap and make that device operate more like a CGM AND IF the device continues to be more attainable for Type 2's...then there is an immediate contribution that could make life better for a large number of people.
For years, any time a news program teased, "Coming up, good news for diabetics!" for some kind of breakthrough, my ears would perk up. But it always refers to Type 2, not Type 1, because there are millions of Type 2's wandering around out there, and many more daily. I am still confused as to how hard detection is. Are you drinking a lot of water? Do you have to pee all the time? Could be diabetes, go check with your doctor. But it can be more subtle for Type 2's, so I'm sure there is value there if Apple can unearth it.
EDIT: The insurance stuff above is based on my experience with insurance in the U.S. ... I don't know how it is in other countries. Sorry about that.
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My series 3 is developing some pretty heinous cracks and crevices in the plastic body, and what looks like a small crack in the sensor glass on the back. I really wanted a 6 for the added heart monitoring features. It looks like it'll be harder for me to hold out for a 7, and even harder to hold out for an 8.
And awaits a class action when it fails, medical devices are a different ballgame.
open your window, there’s an officer wanting to explain it to you
38% of Americans are obese, with a BMI over 30. As many are pre-diabetic and insulin resistant. It is a metabolic disease that can't easily be reversed, and the only reliable and sustainable method is actually fasting.
Fasting will deplete your storage of glycogene and lower your insulin levels enough to trigger a metabolic switch to ketons, a fuel derived from fatty acids tapped from your large fuel tank of fat cells. That is how you lose weight, and that is how you cure your hormonal imbalance.
That is also how you stay healthy in general, as fasting will lead to autophagy, a process in which lower quality cells are tore down in pieces and used as construction material for new, fresh cells in the absence of such material from food.
Now, if you don't eat sugar and if you keep carbs low, you don't need a watch to "monitor" your status, because you will know you are healthy, you will actually feel it. Your heart rate will slow down to 55, and not exceed 60 when eating, compared to a regular Kellogs diet shooting up insulin levels and heart rate to 100.
So they are planning to keep adding inaccurate/pointless sensors (like EKG and O2 sensors) which nobody uses anyways. The reality is that the only reasonably accurate and useful sensor - heart rate sensor - was there from the first model. All other additions were gimmicks. Blood pressure would be useful if accurate which sounds unlikely (there is a reason it was not added years ago - the technology for it does not exist).
Maybe they should bring on Elizabeth Holmes to develop a non-invasive blood testing feature!
I love the thought of taking your temperature for fertility. It’ll definitely make it easier than waking up at the same time to use a BBT before you even sit up in bed.
i wondered the same... I suppose its good Microsoft joined, but the fact Apple tends teaches others how yo do it right only means no-one is really good at anything, than Apple.. Could be scary thought
If your routines are fixed for decades you're not getting fitter. Even maintaining fitness requires change and increased resistance over time.
You mean…this is why they use the word rumors for this website?
How useful would it be to know the temperature of my arm?
That’s even less accurate than measuring your temperature in your armpit.
The only practical way to measure body temperature is in your mouth or in your bottom (need negative compensation), whichever is easier.
That’s even less accurate than measuring your temperature in your armpit.
The only practical way to measure body temperature is in your mouth or in your bottom (need negative compensation), whichever is easier.