At the special event at Apple’s headquarters, Apple’s COO Jeff Williams unveiled the new generation of Apple Watch, Series 4. It’s thinner, faster, and has a larger screen than previous generations. But if that was expected, then wait to know about what was not expected, for Apple Watch Series 4 was packed with many features that use the built-in heart monitor for medical purposes.
The Apple Watch, in its previous versions, had included a built-in heart rate monitor, however, it has been limited to basic, standard functions of tracking the wearer’s heart rate. But now, thanks to the new features, the watch can perform an ECG, Electrocardiography, detect atrial fibrillation, and detect when a person’s heart rate is too low.
To your surprise, Apple even got the Apple Watch Series 4 cleared by the FDA for direct consumer purchase, a first over-the-counter offering for ECG-enabled devices, William said.
However, this is not the first ECG-enabled device to get FDA clearance. Late this year the FDA cleared AliveCor’s Kardiaband device that was made for Apple Watch for over-the-counter purchase, and just this week AliveCor announced it got FDA clearance to detect high potassium levels in blood using Kardiaband.
Regardless of that, the integration directly into the Apple Watch seems easier to use. According to Apple’s COO Jeff Williams, who showed the new watch at Apple’s special event, a person just needs to open the app, tough a finger to the digital crown, and the watch will perform the test using the electrodes built in its back. The entire process would take just 30 seconds.
Many companies and researchers have been using previous versions of Apple Watch to detect AFib. The form and technical specs of the Apple Watch had made it a great device for such a test, however, until the release of Apple Watch Series 4, the ability to detect atrial fibrillation has been limited to these tests.
As for Apple Watch Series 4, all the health data will be encrypted on the device and in the cloud, Apple’s COO Jeff William said. Atrial fibrillation and ECG will be available this year in the U.S., and later, the company will roll them out to other countries around the world.
Apple Watch Series 4 price start at $399 for the aluminum version, and $499 for the aluminum version with cellular features. Pre-orders started already and the device had been available since September 21, 2018.
