The Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watches Series 11 are both likely to launch later this year, and Apple’s long-awaited blood pressure tracking feature is rumored to be on them, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
Gurman says that Apple will update all three of its smartwatches in 2025, with the Ultra 3 and Series 11 both getting blood pressure tracking, a feature that isn’t set to come to the much-rumoured entry-level Apple Watch SE 3.
Rumors of blood pressure tracking coming to the Apple Watch have been swirling for several years, but the feature didn’t arrive with the Apple Watch 10 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, perhaps because of the design changes made to the Series 10.
How will blood pressure tracking work?
Apple’s approach to blood pressure tracking is likely to focus on alerting you when you are in a state of hypertension — when your blood pressure is high, hitting levels over 140/90 mmHg. The watch is unlikely to actually give specific readings of your diastolic or systolic levels, probably because of the accuracy limitations of the sensors on the watch.
This approach is similar to the sleep apnea detection that was introduced to the Apple Watch in 2024, and will serve more as a guideline for users that they should perhaps go and get their blood pressure checked out by a medical professional.
So far, it’s unclear whether you’ll need to do any kind of calibration with a blood pressure cuff to use the feature on the Apple Watch. You do need to do regular calibrations with blood pressure tracking on Samsung smartwatches, and it makes the feature a lot less useful.
Given that Apple’s tracking seems to focus only on giving advisory alerts, hopefully this kind of calibration won’t be required. If it is introduced to the Apple Watch this year blood pressure tracking will join a host of potentially life-saving features on the watch, such as atrial fibrillation detection.
One feature that doesn’t seem set to arrive in 2025, however, is non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, which remains a long-term goal for smartwatch manufacturers.
What else is rumored to be coming to Apple Watch?
Two other upgrades we can expect on the new Apple Watches according to Gurman’s report are satellite connectivity and 5G RedCap network access. The satellite connectivity means that the watches should be able to send emergency messages when off the grid, another potential life-saver for adventurous types who like to head to areas of the great outdoors without cellular signal.
