It’s no secret that Apple is currently working on ways to measure blood pressure. In fact, such a feature wouldn’t necessarily catapult Apple to the top of wearables makers in this regard, but rather would put the company on equal footing with Huawei with its direct metering or Samsung with its optical metering. That said, a new patent (PDF) from Apple has surfaced that describes a new way to measure blood pressure with a watch.
How blood pressure measurement is supposed to work is clear when looking at the flow chart. An inflatable chamber is first filled, which, together with a detection chamber and a pressure sensor, serves to detect the resulting “vibrations” in the user’s blood flow. Simply put: Blood pressure is the external pressure needed to stop blood flow. Korotkoff sounds, the sounds or “vibrations” that are emitted when pressure is applied to blood flow through a non-invasive procedure, can then be measured.
The patent mentions that the chamber is filled with liquid – the advantages of liquid over air are not immediately clear, because liquids, unlike gases (and ultimately air), are considered incompressible . As always, just because Apple patents a particular technology doesn’t necessarily mean it will be implemented in the next Apple Watch or even that it will be implemented at all.
