Apple Watch Series 6 may add anxiety monitoring and sleep tracking
A new leak claims that the Apple Watch Series 6 will add mental health features, longer battery life, and an expansion of existing sensors so the device can measure blood oxygenation.
Apple's current Apple Watch Series 5
Apple's forthcoming update to the Apple Watch, presumed to be called the Series 6, is now rumored to include features to do with monitoring users for mental health issues, including anxiety. Twitter user Nikias Molina has no known previous track in Apple information, but has now details which have tersely confirmed by prolific leaker Jon Prosser.
Molina says that the Apple Watch Series 6 will contain a long-rumored sleep tracking, plus a previously unknown series of mental health abnormalities detection. These will be in part an extension of the current heart rate monitoring, and look for signs of unusual anxiety in users.
Asked about this plus Molina's claim that the Series 6 will feature longer battery life, a pulse oximeter, and run on an S6 chip, Jon Prosser tweeted "Yep!" with no more details. Molina claims he has more to follow at some unspecified time.
The Apple Watch, as it stands, has a heart rate sensor that has been used as a pulse oximeter in other medical-grade devices. The functionality is not enabled at this time, and would require FDA approval for use by consumers as a health monitoring device similar to what it had to get for the electrocardiogram technology.
The addition of sleep tracking to the Apple Watch in 2020 has been rumored before. Addition of sleep tracking would require more battery life, as most users presently charge the device at night. Alternatively, a low-powered implementation, and Apple shifting to some kind of faster Qi-related charging than it currently uses could only mandate a quick charge in the morning.
Such monitoring could be implemented as an extension of the existing Bedtime feature that was introduced in iOS 10.
Apple's current Apple Watch Series 5
Apple's forthcoming update to the Apple Watch, presumed to be called the Series 6, is now rumored to include features to do with monitoring users for mental health issues, including anxiety. Twitter user Nikias Molina has no known previous track in Apple information, but has now details which have tersely confirmed by prolific leaker Jon Prosser.
EXCLUSIVE leaks about the upcoming #AppleWatch Series 6 features.
Sleep Tracking
Longer Battery Life
Pulse Oximeter
S6 Chip
Mental Health Abnormalities Detection
Stay tuned for more. pic.twitter.com/fN0j6xmOMA-- Nikias Molina #BeHappy (@NikiasMolina)
Molina says that the Apple Watch Series 6 will contain a long-rumored sleep tracking, plus a previously unknown series of mental health abnormalities detection. These will be in part an extension of the current heart rate monitoring, and look for signs of unusual anxiety in users.
Asked about this plus Molina's claim that the Series 6 will feature longer battery life, a pulse oximeter, and run on an S6 chip, Jon Prosser tweeted "Yep!" with no more details. Molina claims he has more to follow at some unspecified time.
The Apple Watch, as it stands, has a heart rate sensor that has been used as a pulse oximeter in other medical-grade devices. The functionality is not enabled at this time, and would require FDA approval for use by consumers as a health monitoring device similar to what it had to get for the electrocardiogram technology.
The addition of sleep tracking to the Apple Watch in 2020 has been rumored before. Addition of sleep tracking would require more battery life, as most users presently charge the device at night. Alternatively, a low-powered implementation, and Apple shifting to some kind of faster Qi-related charging than it currently uses could only mandate a quick charge in the morning.
Such monitoring could be implemented as an extension of the existing Bedtime feature that was introduced in iOS 10.
Comments
File this one under "My Watch Thinks I'm Crazy."
So you’ll never get a “you’re batshit crazy again, Susan”-notification; but you might get a “sensor X shows a change from your preferred baseline, would you like to open your meditation app?”
Another good thing about adding pulse ox the watch will be able to do blood pressure as well by itself.
I have a series 3 and I can routinely get 36+ hours on a charge; I'm continually impressed with how much battery life Apple can get out of these devices. Even if the increased life doesn't give you another full day, it has effects as the device ages. Li battery life depends on the number of charge/discharge cycles. Having a longer battery life means fewer cycles and thus a longer useful device lifespan, a significant factor since the battery is not replaceable.
This wasn't in their original plan, but it turns out that pulse ox monitoring is important with COVID so having the functionality has an additional selling point in our current situation.
Sleep tracking apps use the built in always on motion feature of the watch, so they add negligible battery use to calculate sleep awake patterns of movement.