Apple’s long-running quest to bring blood glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch appears to be moving forward. Bloomberg sources They say the company’s no-tap monitoring is now in a “proof-of-concept stage” and good enough that it can hit the market once it’s smaller. The technology, which uses lasers to measure glucose concentration under the skin, was previously the size of a table, but has reportedly advanced to the point where an iPhone-sized wearable prototype is in the works.
The system would not only help people with diabetes monitor their conditions, but ideally alert people who are pre-diabetic, experts say. Then they might make changes that prevent type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes.
Apple declined to comment. The project has supposedly been in development for a long time. It started in 2010, when an ailing Steve Jobs had his company buy the blood glucose monitoring company RareLight. Apple is said to have kept the effort under wraps by operating it as a seemingly stand-alone company, Avolonte Health, but pulling it into a previously unknown Exploratory Design Group (XDG). CEO Tim Cook, Apple Watch hardware lead Eugene Kim, and other top leaders have been involved.
Any real-world product is likely to be years away, according to Bloomberg. The industry also doesn’t have a great track record of bringing puncture-free monitors to market. In 2018, Alphabet’s health subsidiary Verily scrapped plans for a smart contact lens that would have tracked glucose using tears. Even major brands with vast resources aren’t guaranteed success, in other words, and it’s unclear how accurate Apple’s solution would be.
There are strong incentives to bring this technology to portable devices. The Apple Watch is frequently marketed as a health device and can detect signs of atrial fibrillation, low blood oxygen levels, and (starting with Series 8) ovulation cycles. Non-intrusive glucose monitoring could make it an indispensable tool for people with diabetes: You wouldn’t need a dedicated device invading your skin, such as a continuous glucose sensor that sends information from a thin, electrode-equipped needle to an external receiver. That painless approach could give the Apple Watch an edge over competing smartwatches.
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