Deep dive into Apple's hydration tracking plans
Hydration wearables experts weigh in on Apple patent
Not for the first time, Apple appears to be exploring hydration tracking and sweat sensing for the Apple Watch.
Its latest hydration tracking patent – which was revealed last week – hints at a ‘hybrid sensor’ incorporating the smartwatch’s ECG circuitry - but is this something we could see on an Apple Watch any time soon?
During its decade of dominance in the smartwatch market, Apple has been at the forefront of plenty of innovations and evolutions: electrocardiograms (ECG), fall detection, car crash detection, and gestures, to name a few.
It’s even adapted to meet short-term needs, like quickly rolling out a handwashing timer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apple’s strength is that it has the financial clout to turn burgeoning technologies into mass-adopted ideas.
As we await the next generation of hardware sensors, though, this kind of innovation has inevitably slowed; Apple itself hasn’t delivered a mass-appeal new feature to the smartwatch in several generations.
In fact, it could be argued it’s fallen behind. Wearable rivals Whoop, Oura, Google, and Garmin have all pivoted towards software enhancements relating to sleep, recovery, and wellness, and offer more active insights.
We know change is on the horizon, with all the big hitters - Apple included - reportedly racing towards blood pressure analysis and continuing to search for breakthroughs in non-invasive blood glucose monitoring methods.
But new patents show that an oft-overlooked goldmine for data - sweat - could be the company’s next big play for the Apple Watch.
Read on for:
How Apple’s patent works
New metrics that Apple hydration sensors could monitor
Nix Biosensor CEO reaction
FLOWBIO CEO insights