At the moment, the Apple Watch can read blood pressure but it is done through third-party apps and external devices. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this method, it is slightly inconvenient as it means that you need to have the external device with you. However, Apple’s patent suggests that blood pressure monitoring can be built into the Apple Watch itself and monitor levels without interruption to the user.
This is useful similar to the heart rate monitor, where drastic changes to one’s blood pressure can have different results on people. By being able to monitor one’s blood pressure continuously, it could help doctors or emergency responders better understand what’s happening to you.
It’s hard to say when this feature might get baked into the Apple Watch, so we’ll have to wait and see. As it stands, the Apple Watch is also currently able to perform ECG and blood oxygen level readings on users. There have been talks that Apple is working on a non-invasive way of tracking glucose, all of which could make the device a very powerful personal health monitoring tool.