How Sleep Apnea Detection Works for Apple Watch Series 10, Series 9, and Apple Watch Ultra

Apple is adding sleep apnea detection to the Apple Watch Series 10, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and the Apple Watch Series 9. Given that sleep apnea is a breathing disturbance, it's easy to assume that it requires the blood oxygen sensor, but Apple actually uses an entirely different method to detect it.

sleep apnea detection apple watch
Breathing Disturbances, the name for the new Apple Watch metric, uses the built-in accelerometer to detect small movements at the wrist that are associated with interruptions to normal respiratory patterns during sleep.

The Apple Watch collects 30 days of data and then analyzes it, alerting users if there are consistent signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea. Users will see Elevated or Not Elevated readings under the Breathing Disturbances section of the Health app, and the data can be used to share with a doctor to get information on the next steps for sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment.

While aggregating data for sleep apnea detection requires 30 days of information, users can see an overall look at their nightly Breathing Disturbances in the Health app to assess the restfulness of sleep. Breathing patterns can be interrupted by alcohol, medications, and sleep position.

With sleep apnea, breathing momentarily stops during sleep, which stops the body from getting adequate oxygen and often has the effect of waking a person up. It can be a difficult condition to diagnose because it occurs during sleep, and Apple says that more than 1 billion people are estimated to be impacted worldwide.

Apple says that its sleep apnea notification algorithm was created using advanced machine learning and an extensive data set of clinical-grade sleep apnea tests, and then it was validated in a clinical study. Every participant identified by the algorithm had at least mild sleep apnea.

Apple expects sleep apnea detection to get marketing authorization from the FDA and other global health authorities in the near future, and it will be available this month in more than 150 countries.

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Top Rated Comments

johnmed Avatar
11 months ago

Can someone smarter than me explain why this isn’t available on AWU1?
$$$
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
azhava Avatar
11 months ago

So this sleep apnea function appears to monitor whether or not someone may have sleep apnea.
So then what? So a sleep specialist/doctor afterwards?
Why not just see a sleep specialist/doctor and get a sleep study done to actually get a medical diagnosis?
For some, like self, who actually use a CPAP, this sleep apnea function isn't really useful.

Apple says that the iWatch is not a medical device and not to use it as such but it keeps encroaching the gray area of medical diagnosis. The iWatch is a decent fitness device for many and probably the only reason to buy it.
I guess the same could be said of the Atrial Fibrillation detection feature and bradycardia/tachycardia warnings as well, then. Heck, why bother having health sensors in the phone at all, for that matter?

Sleep apnea is undiagnosed in a lot of people - they don't realize they suffer from it, and may never realize it unless something like this feature tipped them off to it. Not everybody has health insurance that would pay for them to go have a sleep study done simply because they wondered if maybe they had sleep apnea or not, and I'm sure those studies aren't cheap. Just because it's not useful to you doesn't mean it's not useful to anybody.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
McWetty Avatar
11 months ago
Can someone smarter than me explain why this isn’t available on AWU1?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
surfzen21 Avatar
11 months ago

Can someone smarter than me explain why this isn’t available on AWU1?
There is no hardware reason.

It is purely Apple being Apple.

The accelerometer is exactly the same.

I am surprised Apple is gatekeeping what they would consider an important health feature.

Maybe they will see how many new, not new, AWU2's they can sell and then add it to AWU OGs in the future but I wouldn't count on that.

At least my Ultra has the O2 sensor which I would think would play a roll as well.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tomasulu Avatar
11 months ago
Not sure anyone feels the same I just don’t feel comfortable wearing a watch to sleep.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
boss.king Avatar
11 months ago
My wife is my sleep apnea detector, I have no plans to force her out of the job.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)