After first adding electrocardiogram support to its smartwatch nearly six years ago (!), Apple is continuing to add health features to its wearables. This week, it raised the curtain on plans to add sleep apnea detection to its Apple Watch as well as to bring long-anticipated over-the-counter hearing aid tech to its latest premium AirPods.
Both additions will require regulatory green lights before they can be used on their respective consumer devices—though Apple said it expects those to be handed down by the end of this month or later this fall.
To help detect breathing disturbances, the Apple Watch will log movements during sleep that are associated with an obstructed airflow. With at least 30 nights of data, the program will notify users whether they should seek additional medical attention for potential sleep apnea.
According to Apple, its machine learning algorithm was trained on clinical-grade sleep apnea tests and then validated in a clinical study “unprecedented in size for sleep apnea technology.” The new feature is set to be available on the Apple Watch Series 9 as well as the upcoming Series 10 and Ultra 2 models that are being released later this month.
Meanwhile, the tech giant’s AirPods Pro 2 are slated to receive the ability to not only assist people with difficulty hearing but also enable users to take a hearing test to track gradual loss.
Described as a clinical-grade test, it delivers different tones over a period of five minutes and can be used to build a personalized profile to help turn the earbuds into sound-boosting aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Apple said those settings will also carry over to music, videos and other sounds played through its connected devices.