By all accounts, Apple and Samsung are believed to be both working on a way to allow their smartwatches to offer a non-invasive blood glucose test for diabetics. This feature would be welcomed by the more than 200 million insulin-dependent diabetics worldwide who must give themselves a painful and expensive test before each meal to help them determine the dose of insulin they need to inject before eating.
Currently, diabetics poke themselves with a short needle called a lancet to draw blood. A drop of blood is then placed on an expensive test strip which has already been inserted in a glucometer, a small machine that computes the person’s blood sugar level. If the diabetic takes too much insulin, he could end up with low blood sugar, a condition known as hypoglycemia, and could act confused and even pass out.
If a diabetic takes too little insulin before a meal, his organs can become severely damaged over time and it can lead to blindness, kidney disease, hearing loss, nerve damage, and more. Thus, it is important that insulin-dependent diabetics give themselves the proper dosage of insulin before each meal. While the technology needed to offer non-invasive glucose readings on an Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch is still a few years away, progress continues to be made and there is hope that such a feature will be available sooner than later giving insulin-dependent diabetics the ability to constantly monitor their blood glucose using sensors placed on a watch.
Another must-have feature for the Apple Watch could appear on the upcoming Series 10 (or X) version of the timepiece. In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in fortune cookie style, “…all signs point to the new Apple Watch gaining a blood-pressure checker this fall.” Gurman notes that this is not a feature that will be added to past models via a software update which could mean that the feature requires new sensors that are being added to the device this year.
Back in December, Gurman said that the plan calls for the first-gen blood pressure monitor to alert users when their blood pressure is high and suggest that the device wearer make an appointment with their doctor. Eventually, Apple would improve the sensors so that instead of a warning, the Apple Watch could reveal an actual and accurate blood pressure reading for the user.
There are watches now that claim to track the blood pressure of the wearer, but these have inflatable cuffs inside the watch band that must be positioned perfectly in order to get a reading.The Huawei Watch D, which uses an inflatable cuff, takes medical-grade blood pressure readings, at least based on the standards that prevail in China.
If Gurman is right, it will be interesting to see how Apple adds an inflatable cuff to the Apple Watch band. The Apple Watch Series 10 (or X) should be introduced in September.
