Apple Watch Series 10 Design Changes Said to Delay Blood Pressure Monitoring Feature

Apple Watch Series 10 was unveiled by Apple last week at the company’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ launch event. While the new smartwatch and its predecessor will offer support for a new sleep apnea detection feature, another capability that was said to be in development — blood pressure monitoring — was not announced by the iPhone maker at the event. This feature is supported on some smartwatch models previously launched by rivals, and it is still expected to make its way to a future version of the Apple Watch.

In the latest edition of his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes that Apple was planning on introducing support for blood pressure monitoring with the Apple Watch Series 10. The journalist cites a source who says that Apple’s changes to the design of the latest model led to some issues with the feature during testing “specifically with the updated design for the Series 10”.

As a result, the ability to check blood pressure levels will not be available on the Apple Watch Series 10, making the new sleep apnea detection feature the first major health feature to be introduced in the past few years. It is designed to warn users who might have the medical condition that results in the stoppage and resumption of breathing while asleep, which could lead to them waking up repeatedly.

Sleep apnea detection was not the only health feature announced at Apple’s hardware launch event on September 9. While the company didn’t introduce a successor to the AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) model, it has updated the truly wireless stereo (TWS) headset with a new feature that allows wearers to use them as a medical grade hearing aid.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for the wireless headset to be used as an over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid last week, making the second generation AirPods the first such product to get the US regulator’s nod since it introduced new guidelines for these products in 2022.