That Apple is currently working on ways to measure blood pressure is no secret. In fact, such a feature would not necessarily catapult Apple to the top of the wearable manufacturers in this respect, but instead put the company on par with Huawei with its direct measurement or Samsung with its optical measurement. That said, a new patent (PDF) from Apple has now emerged, which describes a new way of measuring blood pressure with a watch.
How the blood pressure measurement is supposed to work becomes clear when studying the flow chart. An inflatable chamber is first filled, which, together with a sensing chamber and a pressure sensor, work to detect the resulting ‘vibrations’ that occur in the user’s blood flow. In simple terms: Blood pressure is the externally applied pressure required to stop blood flow. Korotkoff sounds, the sounds or ‘vibrations’ that are emitted when pressure is applied to blood flow via a non-invasive procedure, can then be measured.
The patent mentions that the chamber is filled with liquid – what advantages liquid offers instead of air is not immediately clear, as liquids, unlike gases (and ultimately air) are considered incompressible. As always, just because Apple is patenting a particular technology does not necessarily mean that it will be implemented in the next Apple Watch or even at all.
Source: Apple patents new technology for smartwatch blood pressure measurement
