After the recent launch of Apple’s smartwatch – Apple Watch Series 3 – the company seems to be now involved in planning the next big thing under its wearable series category. As per a recently published patent application of the company, it seems like the Cupertino giant is developing a new device and compatible app that measures and monitors the blood pressure of human beings.

On Thursday itself, a new patent application from Apple was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The application comprises of various pieces of information that indicate the development of a blood pressure monitoring and management application perhaps for the upcoming Apple smartwatch. 

So What Can The Blood Pressure Monitoring App Do?

As per various details mentioned in the patent application, it seems like the engineers at Apple are burning the midnight oil so as to offer the users a tool to monitor blood pressure along with their heart rate. On being a reality, the app will play a pivotal role in alerting people in the case of certain abnormalities in the blood pressure, thereby, helping them in avoiding any irreversible damage.
The patent document lists that the smart app to measure blood pressure would have notifications and reminders to alert its user. Apart from notifying the user promptly, the notification functionality would notify the wearer in case he has prescribed a schedule for blood pressure measurement or monitoring. There are also details in the patent that suggest that the device would have the capability to automatically monitor blood pressure and heart rate based on context triggers.

The tech giant – Apple – has cited some instances in the patent application about the context triggers. Some of these triggers or the user-set parameters that would automatically measure the blood pressure include the physical condition of the user, post-medication, and specified time. These triggers will be detected by the sensors and hardware integrated into the device. Apart from these user-defined parameters, there are also triggers that would notify the device when the correct time to take the blood pressure readings is not available. One such trigger, as per the patent, is driving. So, in short, if the wearer is driving, there won’t be any blood pressure monitoring.

Main Advantages of the App and Smartwatch itself

There are plenty of advantages to having this smart blood monitoring system on your wrist and the compatible app on your smartphone. For instance, as the name suggests, users can easily measure and monitor their blood pressure. Apart from this, they can provide the readings of their blood pressure to their doctors in case of a medical emergency. The app interface is designed to offer a detailed overview of the recorded measurement.

Though it is strongly assumed that the device would be a smartwatch, the patent talks about sample processing, GUI, etc., that is not just limited to a smartwatch but goes well beyond that in the form of smart glasses or smart clothing. 

Wrapping Up

Considering all the aforementioned advantages and the accuracy of the app and device, it seems to be a simple and terrific solution to measure blood pressure. It is quite interesting to note that the new patent application from Apple comes exactly a week after the patent filing for watch technology that could track blood pressure and abnormalities of a heart was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Thus, the same indicates that Apple is more serious than ever about flourishing its health project and turning its health-centric endeavor into a hardcore reality.