New Apple Watch AI Model Can Reveal Hidden Health Conditions

[MacRumors]

A new Apple-backed AI model trained on Apple Watch behavioral data can now predict a wide range of health conditions more accurately than traditional sensor-based approaches, according to a recently published study.

The research paper, titled "Beyond Sensor Data: Foundation Models of Behavioral Data from Wearables Improve Health Predictions," introduces a machine learning model that analyzes user behavior to flag potential health issues. Unlike earlier methods that focus on real-time sensor outputs like heart rate or blood oxygen, the new model identifies patterns in how people move, sleep, and exercise over time.

At the center of the study is a foundation model that the researchers call the Wearable Behavior Model (WBM). It analyzes high-level behavioral metrics such as step count, sleep duration, heart rate variability, and mobility, which are all calculated by the Apple Watch using on-device algorithms.

The researchers found that this approach allows the AI model to detect certain health conditions more effectively than models based solely on direct biometric data. The WBM showed particularly strong performance in identifying what the researchers called static health states, such as whether a person takes beta blockers, and transient health conditions like sleep quality or respiratory infection. For pregnancy detection, the model achieved up to 92% accuracy when combined with traditional biometric data in a hybrid approach.

Apple collected data for the model through the Heart and Movement Study, which involves more than 160,000 participants who voluntarily share data via the Apple Watch and iPhone. The foundation model was trained on over 2.5 billion hours of data and evaluated on 57 different health-related prediction tasks. It uses a time-series machine learning architecture designed to identify changes in behavior over days or weeks, allowing it to identify health conditions that unfold over time rather than instantaneously.

The researchers argue that wearable devices have now evolved to the point where they can support this kind of AI-powered analysis at scale. Whether such a model will be integrated into a user-facing feature in the future is unknown, but it goes to show that current Apple Watch hardware can go much further in terms of accurate and intelligent health analysis.

Article Link: New Apple Watch AI Model Can Reveal Hidden Health Conditions

 

[F23]

Great, now it can detect the health impact of my disappointment with Apple Intelligence.

 

[svish]

Good to see Apple in the health space. Think over time it will improve and these should be incorporated into a future model of Apple watch.

 

[dumastudetto]

Apple's main motivation has always been enriching lives. Profit is secondary.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Interesting, but . . .

Back in present time people are still having to figure out tricks to get the Apple Watch to recognize that they've stood up.

 

[Howard2k]

I notice that Samsung just announced some new features on their new watch (carotenoid measurements).
I hope Apple isn't giving us this press release instead of new features.

It doesn't seem like a huge feature, and I'm sure Samsung has done a lot of testing on this stuff, but I hope Apple is moving forwards too. I don't want a Samsung watch, I want an Apple Watch, but progress seems to be slow on Apple's side right now.

New health sensors would be welcome, though I'd take battery life for sure, if I must. But really, new sensors.

 

[diddl14]

Totally cool but a real breakthrough would be non-evasive glucose and lactate monitoring.

 

[Boeingfan]

I like the idea of this, I'll be willing to use it.

 

[orbital~debris]

This is huge.

The ability of our wearable devices to collate various data and draw conclusions that would otherwise be difficult to spot will surely help even more people when the capability is introduced to Apple Watch.

I suspect this will be part of an Apple Intelligence & Health update, enabled by new processors for the next generation of Apple Watch.

 

[twinlight]

Definitely a good use of AI that can crunch numbers and make out patterns from the data. Samsungs new antioxidant measures is probably a joke. You need to take off the watch and place your thumb on the sensor. A feature someone will try once or twice, get different measurements each time and then forget about. They also already do some blood pressure monitoring but it needs a calibration run every 28 days.

I think Apple can do both these and more if they wanted but they feel it’s not good enough or easy enough for their customers and are delaying said feature.

Many features people are asking for are either way too difficult to implement (blood glucose) or too niche for average users. Would I use antioxidant measures? Once and then just make sure I get some fruits and vegetables into my diet. Same as Withings pee scanner. A device with some interesting features both most likely for some sick person that needs the monitoring due to health issues. Can measure ketones, vitamin c and pH levels. I was interested both c vitamins are really easy to just pop an tablet each day or eat normal to keep up. To my understanding the device didn’t measure this all at the same time but needed a different cartridge for different measurements.

Lactation monitoring sounds interesting but the same goes here, your muscles are underperforming and you feel like ****, yeah your lactate levels are probably high.
UV monitoring? Would be nice and good for risk of skin cancer. Apply sun screen and stay in the shade to solve this. Watch already measure “time spent in sun” from its light sensor so could easily make some reminder for applying sun screen.

Will I buy a new watch ultra? Probably but not because it has some obscure measurements like antioxidant levels.
Ok enough rambling from me.

 

[fullauto]

Impressive. Hopefully this functionality goes public quickly.

 

[Madonepro]

Impressive. Hopefully this functionality goes public quickly.

Safety first eh! Let's make sure that all the various health features, are properly evaluated, before getting into the publics hands. It may seem great to have people visiting doctors, because they have flagged something, but the influx of people adds pressure to a system, which doesn't flex in response that well.

 

[fitshaced]

Not sure why this needs to run on a wearable device if it’s analysing trends. All that data gets sent to the iPhone. In fact, my watch data goes back 7 years.

 

[Filligans]

”…earlier methods that focus on real-time sensor outputs like heart rate or blood oxygen”
Means we’ll never get the latter on Apple Watches again.

 

[orbital~debris]

”…earlier methods that focus on real-time sensor outputs like heart rate or blood oxygen”
Means we’ll never get the latter on Apple Watches again.

Why do you think this? As the processors in Watch are improved over time, they will be able to handle more on-device processing.

 

[TravelsInBlue]

This is overall good however it’s a fine line to walk.

There have been news stories of people who have discovered life threatening illnesses and sought medical care, which is a great thing.

However over monitor and all of a sudden you run the risk of overtreating something that wasn’t actually a threat.

Truth is, we all have some numbers that are going to be outliers, and if it isn’t broken sometimes treating a non-issue creates risk in itself and adds excessive use of constrained healthcare resources.

 

[arc of the universe]

i hope the AI analysis is not limited to just what the apple Watch is collecting data on.
apple's Health app is more or less being used as a library of data that a great deal of devices are capable of being given permission to write to. providing apple with a way to analyse a lot more data than the Watch alone is capable of.

even movement, lifestyle illness and sedentary related analyses would benefit from other rather basic data like weight, and, would benefit from other data, like lean muscle mass and blood pressure which apple devices dont measure now and aren't likely to offer for at least two or more years, if ever.

the AI should be able to use the entire range of the data in the Health library.

the AI processing wouldn't be done on the Watch. it will be done on the iPhone. apple having this capability on the iPhone would be able to help sell iPhones. that's the financial incentive.
its no reason to limit the capability of the AI program to just what an apple branded Watch provides.

it will also be interesting to see how a later generation of apple AirPods will figure into the sensor inputs as well.

 

[nli10@mac.com]

That’s great - but - I a;ready know I have long-term health issues. There is no literature provided by any of the smart device manufacturers that says how you can use these to support treatment and tell what is working and what’s just masking symptoms

This is just a flashing red light that says - go to GP and watch them roll eyes as you tell the, your watch/ring/ai says yr sick

 

[bluecoast]

This sounds exciting.

Agree with a few people here that apple has been making slow progress on the proactive heath aspect of the watch.

Everyone knows that the best healthcare is proactive - rather than alerting you to an impending health crisis.

I also hope also they launch their rumoured heath+ feature yesterday. This sounds like it might be part of that.

 

[Pudlo]

hhahaha
they can't make simple siri operations to work with ai but all of a sudden they can detect hidden health issues?
one of many apple dreams never to come true

 

[Nada Ting]

Who needs doctors, Apple has your back.

 

[cdsapplefan]

So now the Apple Watch ⌚️ will have Apple Intelligence integration. Who would’ve thought?

 

[ttaylor2258]

Great, but I won't trust it one bit. My watch can't even figure out when I'm actually standing. Every day (I work from home) I walk upstairs, grab breakfast from my fridge, walk to my big window, look out for a minute, walk back downstairs and sit at my desk. After standing and moving and climbing a set of stairs, it never gives me credit. But at night when I'm sitting on my couch, if I turn my body one specific way, it gives me credit for a stand hour. Right now I don't trust ANY analytics that it spits out at me.

 

[AlanMarron]

This is overall good however it’s a fine line to walk.

There have been news stories of people who have discovered life threatening illnesses and sought medical care, which is a great thing.

However over monitor and all of a sudden you run the risk of overtreating something that wasn’t actually a threat.

Truth is, we all have some numbers that are going to be outliers, and if it isn’t broken sometimes treating a non-issue creates risk in itself and adds excessive use of constrained healthcare resources.

Don’t worry. The drug cartels NEVER rush ahead of real science just to make a profit. Everything is safe and effective.

 

[jicon]

Apple's main motivation has always been enriching lives. Profit is secondary.

...to the richest business on the planet.

There's more passive income the longer the user remains around. Pharmaceutical racket knows this routine well.