Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Watch Blood Pressure Feature Hits More Snags in Apple's Testing

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,482
37,743


Apple's plan to bring blood-pressure tracking to the Apple Watch is still hitting snags, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

apple-watch-series-10-gold-titanium.jpg

Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says that the company "continues to run into problems" while testing the feature. No other information was provided on the issues Apple is having.

Gurman has been reporting on Apple's plan to bring blood pressure monitoring since January 2022. In a November 2023 report, he said that the initial version wouldn't show a user their exact systolic and diastolic measurements, but Apple was working on a follow-up version for later that could do so.

At the time, Gurman said the feature was on the cards for the Apple Watch Series 10, but that didn't happen.

More recently, Gurman has said the feature would track whether a user's blood pressure is trending upwards and send an alert if hypertension is detected. After receiving an alert, the Apple Watch user could provide the information to a medical professional for additional testing.

Hypertension is known as a silent killer because it can go undetected and undiagnosed, leading to heart damage and death. High blood pressure often has few symptoms until it is notably advanced, and early detection via the Apple Watch has the potential to save lives.

As recently as last December, Gurman claimed that Apple was "ramping up" work on blood-pressure tracking and that the feature could arrive as soon as 2025. But going on his latest comments, even that now sounds unlikely.

Article Link: Apple Watch Blood Pressure Feature Hits More Snags in Apple's Testing
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/24/apple-watch-blood-pressure-feature-snags/
  • Sad
Reactions: iLLUMI and SFjohn
Ok, now the watch series 11 will be also skipped.

What about adding some new cameras in the watch?
Or, a very thin version with a small battery, could be called an Apple Watch Air?
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
  • Wow
Reactions: janwerbinski and Sir_Macs_A_Lot
So this won't be in this years Apple Watch Ultra refresh as Gurman stated last week then.. man doesn’t know so he should just say that he doesn’t know. The feature is useless anyway unless it gives you actual blood pressure readings. If you have blood pressure problems the the chances are you’ll know what it should read and what is an unhealthy reading.
 
Currently on a series 9 - think I will hold out until we get a significant new health feature. Blood pressure would be awesome (especially if it gave you actual numbers) - blood glucose is the final frontier for the watch. It's a bit of a shame these two features are taking so long, as they're real life savers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: artifex, UnbreakableAlex, pplfn and 4 others
The day the Apple Watch can properly detect your blood pressure and glucose readings is the day it will be an invaluable device for millions for their health.

EDIT: Just wanted to add here, I had the misfortune of developing a small heart condition in 2019, it meant a trip in an ambulance. My heart rate shot up rapidly and didn’t drop. Now I had an Apple Watch series 1 at the time and it is what I used to check my heart rate, and I continued to use it to check my pulse and it perfectly matched the readers the Ambulance crew had and the reader in the hospital. It was EXACTLY the same. Now once my condition was diagnosed I knew that and was comfortable in the knowledge that the Apple Watch was a perfectly reliable tool to check my heart rate if I had any attacks, and then I got one with the ECG monitor as that was also extremely useful for doctors for the same reason.

So you can bet I’ll grab a new one when it gets BP monitoring built in.

The only thing I wish for is that they allow the Apple Watch to work with the iPad instead of locking it down to just the iPhone.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: janwerbinski, randomfreeform, UnbreakableAlex and 7 others
Godspeed8230 said:
If it's accurate, why not? 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Yeah. it's kinda silly. I remember arguing in the photostudio of my university that the iPhone would be just as good as a light meter. The old school workshop leaders would not believe me back then so we ran some tests and came up with exactly the same values. One expensive pice of equipment less to buy and carry around. If it works it works. And especially since you carry it around the clock. If they ever move on beyond trending that will be amazing. I had a 24 hour blood pressure sensor applied to me two times already and it's just bulky and tubes and cables everywhere wich makes you look like a freak and is major in the way when sleeping. If your watch just dos that and dos it reliably its A+++ amazing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: artifex, Student of Life, mech986 and 2 others
To me it would be fine if the watch needed to be calibrated like once a month or so...Just perform a measurement with a "normal" pressure bandage (not sure what is the correct term) and have at the same time a calibration started at the watch: Enter the values from the normal tool and then the watch can monitor the changes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: attila, mech986, schneeland and 1 other person
Aeronauts said:
Nobody should rely on a watch for BP monitoring. You can buy a proper home monitoring kit very cheaply.
Click to expand...
Yes, but as someone who has hypertension I’d really appreciate the continuous monitoring a watch can provide.

To take accurate measurements with an arm cuff machine it requires about 15 minutes (10 minutes of sitting still, and 5 minutes to do 2 measurements 2 minutes apart) twice a day which is a fairly involved process to do regularly.

The hospital recently gave me continuous blood pressure monitor (which funnily enough is a watch like device) and it has been fantastic.

I’d absolutely love this if it was accurate enough.
 
  • Like
Reactions: artifex, pplfn, Aeronauts and 5 others
Aeronauts said:
Nobody should rely on a watch for BP monitoring. You can buy a proper home monitoring kit very cheaply.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Accurate BP reading is notoriously difficult to achieve, and even more so at wrist level. Even the large wrist cuff based ones have historically been less accurate than arm cuff models. I don’t see why anyone who has, or is concerned about, hypertension should trust any watch-sized device used for this purpose.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: keys, Aeronauts, mech986 and 2 others
Hardly surprising. All the talk about the next (or next-next 🙄) AW having a built in CGM sensor is even more laughable. That would be a game-changer but it’s fantasy for a good while yet.

Of course you can’t reproduce BP readings with any sort of accuracy, using an optical sensor. Even an approximate trend (the absolute best you could hope for) isn’t really clinically useful and certainly not a determinant for therapeutic decisions.

It’s literally the first most basic clinical parameter any primary HCP will do when you have regular or even annual checkups. If you’re someone in need of closer monitoring (such as CVD pts on a cocktail of antihypertensives) then an inexpensive at-home sphygmo (my parents use a Withings, that syncs to their iPhone/iPads) is an infinitely better solution.
 
Last edited:
Onimusha370 said:
Currently on a series 9 - think I will hold out until we get a significant new health feature. Blood pressure would be awesome (especially if it gave you actual numbers) - blood glucose is the final frontier for the watch. It's a bit of a shame these two features are taking so long, as they're real life savers.
Click to expand...
Series 9? I’m on a 7 and feel the same way. There is nothing in the last 3 years that has made me want to upgrade aside from the normal wear and tear.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Student of Life, Fll01, short2ground and 2 others
I know one of the key design requirements of the Watch was keeping all the sensors on the device but maybe Apple should think outside the box a bit and see if they can make it work with a sensor in the strap so it's reading the veins on the underside of your wrist? It might be a bit clunkier but surely having accurate measurements of key health metrics could outweigh the purism of keeping everything inside the Watch.
 
CraigJDuffy said:
Yes, but as someone who has hypertension I’d really appreciate the continuous monitoring a watch can provide.

To take accurate measurements with an arm cuff machine it requires about 15 minutes (10 minutes of sitting still, and 5 minutes to do 2 measurements 2 minutes apart) twice a day which is a fairly involved process to do regularly.

The hospital recently gave me continuous blood pressure monitor (which funnily enough is a watch like device) and it has been fantastic.

I’d absolutely love this if it was accurate enough.
Click to expand...
Without obviously knowing your clinical history, I’d seriously question why your hospital cardiology OP care has you wearing a BP monitor when the output cannot in any way be relied upon or affect how your hypertension is managed therapeutically.

There’s a reason the cuffed home monitors get you to sit still for a short period of time, that has nothing to do with convenience. It’s all about accuracy and the negation of external factors that can significantly affect readings.

Sure, it’d be easier to just pull readings off a watch/wearable but at best, you’ll get an uncalibrated approximation of change over a period of time, not absolute numbers which are clinically meaningful when accumulated as a trend. It seems very much like a psychological panacea in your case.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: locovaca and Mr_Ed
Probably not this year but maybe next year but we really don't know so maybe the year after that and the cycle repeats.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back