Apple Reportedly Planning Multiple New Apple Watch Health Features, Including Temperature and Blood-Pressure Monitoring

Apple is planning to add a raft of new health features to the Apple Watch, including blood-pressure trends, a thermometer for fertility and sleep tracking, sleep apnea detection, and diabetes detection, as well as a number of updates for existing models, according to the Wall Street Journal.

apple watch 6s 202009
Sources who claim to be familiar with Apple's plans and have access to internal company documents told the Wall Street Journal about the company's development of a large number of new Apple Watch health features in detail. Most of these new health monitoring functions are not expected to arrive before 2022.

Apple is said to be considering adding a thermometer to the Apple Watch for health monitoring purposes as soon as next year. The thermometer's features are purportedly based around fertility planning to give women insights into their ovulation cycle and improved detection of patterns when tracking sleep. Further in the future, there are also plans for this sensor to detect when a user has a fever.

The blood-pressure monitoring feature reportedly detects when pressure is increasing and can highlight the presence of hypertension. Apple intended to release the feature next year but has experienced difficulties in perfecting the technology, according to the report.

As opposed to the common methods that measure blood pressure using an inflatable cuff wrapped around the upper arm, Apple's system measures the speed of the wave of a heartbeat through a user's arteries using sensors. The Apple Watch would then show a user how their blood pressure is trending, but would not be able to provide a baseline systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurement, leading some Apple employees have to raise questions with managers over the usefulness of the feature.

Apple is also purportedly studying blood-pressure monitoring with an additional cuffless device that could provide a more precise reading without inflating.

Further in the future, the company apparently has plans to implement detection for sleep apnea using the existing blood-oxygen sensor, but there have been challenges with taking readings often enough without draining the Apple Watch's battery life. Apple also intends to provide medical guidance when the Apple Watch detects low blood-oxygen levels.

Plans to bring detection of diabetes to the Apple Watch are also underway, but the company is said to have faced challenges with non-invasive blood glucose measuring and struggled to make progress. Apple is apparently working with the National University of Singapore on a research project to examine lifestyle coaching for pre-diabetic people who wear blood-glucose monitoring devices made by other companies.

The report cautioned that these new Apple Watch health features are currently under study and development at Apple and could ultimately be delayed or canceled.

Separately, Apple is also reportedly putting pressure on the FDA to approve a number of updates for existing Apple Watch models. One update would allow people with atrial fibrillation to use the Apple Watch to track their condition over time. Another update would allow the Apple Watch to alert users if their blood-oxygen levels drop.

Currently, the Apple Watch can only look for signs of atrial fibrillation in people who do not have the condition and blood-oxygen monitoring can only provide a reading without alerts for changes.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Monday June 16, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
terminal macos tahoe

Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

Monday June 16, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted. The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...

Top Rated Comments

dantracht Avatar
50 months ago
SO...hold onto my 6 and wait for the 8. Got it. Sounds like a plan to me.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Amazing Iceman Avatar
50 months ago

a thermometer for fertility
Will it alert you when your wife is hot?
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shalev Lazarof Avatar
50 months ago
IMO this is Apple Watch, a health guardian and activity motivator, everything else is a bonus.

BTW, in love with my S6 ?.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
alexandr Avatar
50 months ago

Apple targets people in their 80s? Or just sickly Americans in general?

A watch ain't gonna help you. Start fasting. Quit carbs.
what an incredibly ignorant thing to say. people can develop heart conditions or diabetes while at a young age leading healthy lifestyles. features such as these, can let them know of this in advance and in some cases — save their lives. but you can fast all you need to.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
4jasontv Avatar
50 months ago
I just can’t get used to wearing my watch while I sleep. I’d rather see improvements in their under mattress tech.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JosephAW Avatar
50 months ago
How about working on week long battery life? :rolleyes:
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)