Apple unveiled the new Watch Series 9 alongside the Watch Ultra 2 in September last year. Like their predecessors, the new set of wearables offer valuable health insights to users directly on their wrists by monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep pattern, movements, temperature and more. Apple is said to bring a new blood pressure monitoring feature to the upcoming Apple Watch Series 10. This feature would allow wearers to understand the trends in blood pressure. Samsung offers a similar feature on the Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 5 models.
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, in the latest edition of his weekly newsletter Power On, opined that the blood-pressure monitoring feature will be added to the Apple Watch Series 10. "All signs point to the new Apple Watch gaining a blood-pressure checker this fall. But it doesn't appear that the capability will be coming to current models" he said. This indirectly suggests that the blood pressure monitoring would be a hardware feature and older Apple Watch models will be not able to access it via software update.
Monitoring blood pressure through Apple Watch would help users reduce their reliance on conventional blood pressure readings done in a clinic. The tracking of blood pressure through the Apple Watch would help individuals to track changes and lead to early detection of hypertension, heart disease, or other complications.
Apple is not the first tech company to add blood pressure monitoring support to smartwatches. Samsung currently offers ECG (Electro Cardiography) and BP monitoring capabilities for the Galaxy Watch 4, Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 6 series. The health-tracking features can be accessed via the Samsung Health Monitor app. Huawei is also providing a similar automatic blood pressure monitor in its Watch D.
