Apple could further improve the functionality of its Watch with the arrival of iOS 14. According to what reported our colleagues from 9to5Mac, some portions of the code of the next major release of iOS suggest the possibility of monitoring the level of oxygen in the blood through the Apple Watch.
Apple has predicted a new notification that will activate when the blood oxygen level drops below a certain threshold, a bit like the irregular heart rhythm notification sent by the Apple Watch Series 1 and later. It is not yet clear whether taking advantage of the new function will be a prerogative of the future Apple Watch Series 6 or whether even the current and previous ones will benefit from it with a watchOS update – watchOS 7 which will probably arrive in the autumn.
Apple Watch blood oxygen detection feature found in iOS 14 code snippet
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The level of oxygen in the blood is an additional indicator of the state of health – too low levels (hypoxia) can be associated with multiple pathologies, including heart failure – and, given the particular attention that Apple has always paid to the functionality of its smartwatches that can help to monitor vital signs, it would not be surprising the desire to enrich the standard equipment with the new function.
The same source points out that Apple is also working to improve the ECG function, currently supported by Apple Watch Series 4 and 5. At the moment, if the heart rate is between 100 and 120 beats per minute, the EGC returns inconclusive reading. unsatisfactory – the ECG is, therefore, unable to check for atrial fibrillation. With the future refinement of the functionality, this limit should disappear. In the future of Apple Watch there would also be the possibility of monitoring sleep – but even in this case, we do not know whether it will be a prerogative of the new models. We will wait for the next developments.
