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I can see glucose monitoring eventually becoming available since we know it is possible to monitor blood sugar with a skin patch. But I am highly skeptical if we will see blood pressure monitoring unless their is a major advancement of medical science where a blood pressure cuff is no longer needed.

Could work with smart bands.

Blood pressure can be determined intravascularly with multiple reference points – which the Watch is well suited for as you wear it throughout the day. The amount of blood pumped is directly connected to blood pressure. Existing sensors can already view blood flow through your skin, enough to determine a heartbeat. Improving the accuracy of the measurement of volume of blood will get us blood pressure without any need for a cuff.

Nonetheless, useful health data can be taken from changes to the pressure, not necessarily exactly what that pressure reading is. If your baseline is determined throughout the day and you have a spike in either direction, there's an alert or a marker for that time of the day that can be correlated to an activity. If your blood pressure is never consistent, then a determination can be made that you should see a doctor.

Body temperature and blood pressure are coming. No "major advancement of medical science" (that hasn't already happened) is necessary. Non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, on the other hand, is a major advancement and will absolutely change the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
 
The reason that the opposite of this being true is going to be a problem is that it’s going to further burden healthcare. People freak out that their O2 dipped down to 92% for a short time during (likely REM) sleep and are otherwise healthy. Humans have never measured their vitals every second of the day. If you are awake and your oxygen is 92%, and that’s far from your baseline, yes there is a problem. But seeing your heart rate at 49 or your oxygen at 94% while sleeping, and now a temp of 101 while raging outside at a music festival is not usually an issue. Our bodies fluctuate. Your temp goes up, you sweat to bring it down. In time people will learn but as all this new tech and 24/7 health monitoring emerges, it causes people to say “omg google says my oxygen should be 96% or above! Why did it go to 92% in my sleep last night!?”

I went off on a general conversation not too specific to your comment. The reason I replied was because the temp may also be elevated in certain situations such as vigorous outdoor activity for a very brief time period until you cool down. In this situation you are also fine.
On the one hand, measuring at all when you didn't used to do so will expose some things that could be a surprise, a worry.

However, if we do a one-off temperature measurement - typical of a conventional thermometer - we might hit a peak or a trough. And probably never get to find that out. Even if we do that every morning and evening indefinitely. In which case we might miss something of significance.

But with continuous (or frequent enough not to miss brief variations) measuring, we should get a more rounded and complete picture.
 
Numerous other fitness wearables offer the temp feature and it’s accurate. Why? Because they only measure it at night where variability is less. Apple knows most don’t wear their Apple Watch at night because they are charging it so I’m sure they are struggling to find a way to take accurate readings when so much of our skin temp depends on our ever changing environments indoors and outdoors etc. during the day.
 
I'm NOT upgrading until the Apple Watch can automatically open my frig!

/s

If you have a high temperature as in a fever, you'll feel warm or even hot. And, likely feel ill or like you're coming down with something.

Very low temperature, you'll feel chilled and, again, often like you are getting sick.

Look, for a very low $10, you can buy a 10-second digital thermometer! If you feel off, or warmer or colder than usual, simply take your temperature! That'll tell you if it's just the environment you're in or if something's out of whack with your core body temperature.

Leave the digitherm on bed stand and take your temp each morning. Enter the data in your iPhone or Watch for tracking — or, even on a pad with a pencil on the bed stand — and you'll soon know what normal is for you.

As Steve Jobs used to say, “It's that simple!”


——————

For sure, regular high quality temperature monitoring might catch an upward or downward trend before you start feeling it — but the early morning temp-taking would in most cases, too! The quest for a Watch temperature indicator seems like a hi-tech, Inspector Gadget, MI5 Q fixation! ?

Longer battery life and Apple FaceTime calling would have more universal and marketable appeal,

By the way, in response to an earlier ageist poster ?❌, health sensors such as the EKG and the arrhythmia and fall-detection alerts have demonstrated benefits for many, if not most, adults — not just those over 65!
 
What a wonderful way of finding out your nearest and dearest have reached their ends.

Beep Beep Beep Flashing alert: <close friend or family member> is dead.

"Siri can contact funeral parlours near you. Would you like to listen to Mozart's Requiem?"

Warning Asystole detected, Attention body temperature dropping below life supporting threshold. Would you like to contact emergency services.
 
My and my wife's Series 5 Watches are still fine, but I may consider doing this when the time comes. Nothing since Series 5 has been very interesting, aside from maybe the form factor and screen change in Series 7. The service in Canada is $99, which is about US$77, very reasonable.

Just a note though, AFAIK, Apple won't do the battery upgrade (which means just replacing the whole Watch) just because someone wants it. I believe the battery has to have deteriorated to a point which meets their eligibility threshold. If it doesn't, you're SOL.

Yeah the threshold is 80% capacity (shown in the screenshot I posted). If the capacity is higher, and the battery life is still significantly bad, it might be a software issue, but otherwise maybe there’s a way to expedite battery deterioration……
 
Those Fahrenheit temperatures really crack me up. Next, you’ll be pricing the iwatch in groats!
 
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Pretty much exactly my outlook on the matter. I'm all for things like ECG monitoring or annual cancer screening and the like, but in more general terms unless you're sick there's no reason to assume the worst. Humans have never needed AI sentinels monitoring our bodies 24/7 and there's no need to start now. But that is only my opinion and if people want temperature monitoring on their Apple Watch then that's their business. I just won't be getting excited about it personally ?
I’m not saying I don’t like the idea of being able to check, but people will just have to learn that there’s more to it than googling “what’s a normal oxygen” and comparing it to their readings.
 
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if that is all that AW8 will add from a health sensor perspective - it'll be a NO for me...
Samsung is currently leading with having temp and good pressure sensing, whether or not their algorithm is a weak point, don/t know ut Apple needs to UP it's game for the watch
Samsung is junk
 
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I'm currently trialling this:

I'll know more about how good/useful it is in a few days, but it needs an arm cuff (included) in order to calibrate the wrist device, and it has to be recalibrated at least once a month.
Is it something that is easily detachable when its taking a reading? Because that's my issue. I have white-coat-syndrome, so if I know it's reading, it won't work for me.
 
Which is exactly why they will save lives. The average person isn’t buying a “medical grade device”. It’s the indication from a consumer device that they should get checked out by a medical grade device that will be what saves lives.
Again that’s not how that works. If anything it bogs down the hospital networks when someone comes into the ER and says ‘my Apple Watch EKG is saying I’m dying’ trustttttt me these things aren’t helpful in terms of direct medical diagnostics so in the end what are they really for?
 
Yes and no. Stuff like arrhythmia detection in Apple Watch is in fact FDA and Health Canada cleared as a medical device (and elsewhere too), and does save lives. OTOH, stuff like oxygen and eventually blood pressure measurement? Not so much.
Yes it’s class 2 as a notification device. While one could argue it might give patients a heads up about something drastically wrong, it’s not going to be used by clinicians as a diagnostic device. They’ll use actual medical equipment for that. Which was the point of my original comment. It’s excellent marketing but people should be conservative with their expectations when it comes to the value of the Apple Watch as a medical device/diagnostic tool.
 
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Yes it’s class 2 as a notification device. While one could argue it might give patients a heads up about something drastically wrong, it’s not going to be used by clinicians as a diagnostic device. They’ll use actual medical equipment for that. Which was the point of my original comment. It’s excellent marketing but people should be conservative with their expectations when it comes to the value of the Apple Watch as a medical device/diagnostic tool.
People are crazy. ..or simply dumb
 
I went from a S0-watch to S6. Some updates, a little faster and a few gimmicks like EKG and Oximeter - but essentialy it still feels like a minor upgrade to me - probably going to wait for S10-S12 for the next one.
Keep waiting
 
What is the Apple Watch team doing? Apple has had plenty of time to add the sensor.

If there aren’t going to be any new sensors available in Apple Watch 8. Don’t even bother introducing a new watch in 2022. People will eventually get tired of getting minimal upgrades.
Apple is stealing consumers money
 
This would’ve been a huge marketing tool during the pandemic, but it seems like a missed opportunity.
Apple Watches were picking up a spontaneous drop in average heart rate variability up to a week before presentation of COVID-19 symptoms. It’s unfortunate because this received zero attention in the media and minimal acknowledgement in the health research community.

It should go without saying that this isn’t a firm diagnosis of past or current infection. However - if you wear your Apple Watch religiously and think/know you had Covid-19, check your variable heart rate with the markers set to “6M”. You just might see it show up on there.
 
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I just want a thinner Apple Watch.

The 10.7 mm thickness of my Series 5 (and the current Series 7) is just far, far too thick.
You can’t expect a thinner chassis to have the same battery life and more advanced sensors. That being said, if they released a much thinner version with more basic functionality, I might buy just to use in formal situations. I don’t see them creating different segments within the category though.
 
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