A new feature is on its way to Australian owners of an Apple Watch, as sleep tracking gets properly serious with sleep apnoea checks on your wrist.
In the age of the smart gadget, it’s normal to see new features rolled out fairly regularly for the devices you own. If they’re recent, you might see some of these pop out more regularly, often from operating system updates. Some, however, take time to get approved for regulatory reasons.
Here in Australia, the latter can certainly hold up health features, as one of the country’s governmental bodies makes sure health features do what they say on the box. It’s why Australia saw ECG support in wearables a little later than their American counterparts, and the same is true for a feature rolling out this week to Apple Watch customers.
Good news, though, because you won’t need to wake up for this feature addition. However, if you’re one of the 80 percent of people who are affected by sleep apnoea and are undiagnosed for it, the news could be very handy indeed.
This week, Apple has switched on sleep apnoea checks for Aussie Apple Watch models, working on the Apple Watch Series 9, last year’s Series 10, and of course the Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Available in Australia following approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration only recently, the sleep tracking feature works a little differently from some of the physical sleep trackers out in the world, such as the Withings Sleep Analyser.
While that model uses the air expelled from your lungs to work out any breathing disturbances (a field known as ballistocardiography), Apple’s approach uses algorithms to monitor short interruptions in your breathing patterns, analysing 30 days worth of breathing disturbances to work out whether you’re at risk of sleep apnoea. In the event that you are, the feature will give you an alert, and like other Apple Watch notifications, may be a sign to take to your GP.
From there, your doctor may want to order more thorough studies, which could give you more information as to the severity of any sleep apnoea you may be suffering from, and even provide some potential assistance in treating it.
As for the Apple Watch, the feature is essentially a nudge in the right direction, and should provide those affected by it a bit of a helping hand to getting the sleep they need.
