What does the future of the Apple Watch look like? This patent may be our clearest glimpse of it, as the company looks to make the most of its watch bands by weaving sensors and additional tech directly into them.
This opens a lot of doors for Apple to not only vastly improve the health tracking on the watch, but also introduce some fascinating new usability options. Patently Apple has created some good illustrations to show you what’s going on.
It’s all in the band
The patent gives us a full view of what Apple has been working on for at least five years, which shows us how the company’s next move is to weave health sensors directly into the band.
This is the third of three patents that show the ongoing development of adding a blood pressure device to the watch. But this one goes much further, with a view to interlace this type of device and many other sensors into the strap.
Interestingly, Apple doesn’t just talk about input devices like a blood oxygen sensor and heart-rate sensor, but the company looks at the potential of adding more usability features like a speaker, a microphone, and even an additional display.
Outlook
With the limitations of sticking all the health tracking technology within the body of the watch, Apple has been able to pull off some impressive feats. Taking this next step and integrating more sensors directly into the band provides a lot more data with greater levels of accuracy, and opens up a few more doors in terms of what the Apple Watch is able to track.
Color me excited for how this will all turn out — not just for the casual use of measuring certain key aspects of your health, but for super accurate blood pressure measurements, and even maybe going as far to check glucose levels.
Apple Watch has stood out from wearables in terms of health tracking and notifications of any fluctuations, and this is simply that trend carrying on. But it also opens up more fascinating options to what else is possible.
