Blood pressure monitoring and more sleep-tracking features are coming to future Apple Watches

Apple has some big plans for the future Apple Watch. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is planning to add a slew of health tracking features in the next coming years that include blood pressure monitoring, advanced sleep-tracking, and a thermometer for fertility planning. 

Blood pressure monitoring can get a little tricky. For the most part, smartwatches don’t have the technology capable of measure this sort of thing, so Apple is trying to figure out a proxy that measures the “the speed of the wave a heartbeat sends through a person’s arteries using sensors in the Apple Watch.”

“The version of the feature under discussion at Apple would try to show users how their blood pressure is trending, but without providing a baseline measure of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, according to people familiar with these plans.”

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When it comes to sleeping tracking features, future Apple Watches will be able to detect sleep apnea and advanced sleep patterns. Wearable companies like Fitbit offer similar features, so this will help the Apple Watch better compete with them. 

Last on the list is the ability to track a person’s temperature with the Apple Watch. The main idea behind this feature is to help with fertility planning, which helps women get insights into their ovulation cycle. This new feature will also be able to determine if you’re coming down with a fever.  

Now, keep in mind. None of these features will make it to the Apple Watch Series 7, which is expected to launch later this year. But WSJ’s reporting says that the fertility feature could be available as soon as next year, as well as many of the other features noted here. Read the full WSJ report here.

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