Apple is working to add blood sugar monitoring to Apple Watch, but the facility is still far away
Over the years, we have seen countless reports about Apple’s secret work on creating a non-invasive blood glucose monitoring feature for Apple Watch. However, according to the latest report, Apple still lags behind providing convenience to consumers.
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Apple has been working on a blood glucose monitor feature for your watch over the years. It is one of the company’s most ambitious projects since the tenure of Steve Jobs. Cupertino giants want to create a non-invasive blood glucose monitor for Apple Watch, aimed at providing a painless option for current glucose monitoring methods, which usually requires skin prick. However, despite years of research, this feature is still far from becoming a reality.
In his latest power on the newsletter, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg noted that Apple’s long-term project has been working for more than 15 years to develop a non-invasive glucose monitor. However, the company is facing important technical challenges in making it consumer-taiyar products.
The idea originally emerged during the tenure of Steve Jobs, when in 2010, Apple acquired blood glucose monitoring startup rarelight. Apple has been allegedly operating on the project since then. In fact, some earlier reports suggested that Apple CEO Tim Cook and other top officials are very closely associated with the project.
Apple’s project to develop a blood glucose monitor, allegedly known as Project E5, rotates using optical sensors that dlow the light through the skin to measure glucose levels using spectroscopy. Allegedly one of the biggest obstacles is making the technique smaller to fit within the compact form of Apple Watch, ensuring accuracy and reliability. In fact, despite the recent progress, a current device, including a proof-off-concept prototype developed in -2023, is very large for integration in a smartwatch. Apple is also called a dedicated team of engineers working under its searching design group (XDG) to refine the technology.
Now, it is not that Apple has not faced challenges with his other health facilities. The company has faced failures with sensors for blood oxygen and blood pressure tracking. The SPO2 feature was removed from Apple Watch due to patent dispute, while high blood pressure-tracking feature has faced developmental obstacles. However, given these challenges, Gurman suggests that the blood glucose monitoring feature is still “many years away” from being introduced into a consumer device.
While we have to wait a bit for monitoring blood sugar, meanwhile, something big is developing soon for updates. Gurman has revealed that Apple is allegedly developing a virtual health coach within the health app on the iPhone. This feature will come with the new iOS 19 update.
Codenemed project mulberry, the purpose of this feature is to offer personal health recommendations based on user data. The AI-operated system will analyze information from iPhone, Apple Watch and other health-tracking goods to provide insight into heart rate, sleep patterns, activity levels and overall well-being.
According to the major changes of the health app, it is also working on integrating food tracking in the Apple app- a feature that will allow users to log and obtain AI-operated nutritional insights. The company has allegedly recruited medical experts in various fields including cardiology, sleep science and neutrition to help train AI models and ensure accuracy. However, it is not clear whether the AI health coach will be part of the premium membership-based service or a free facility.
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