Sleep apnea detection isn’t unique to the Apple Watch, but it is one of the hottest wearables trends of 2024.
Apple gained FDA approval in the middle of September – a few days before the Apple Watch Series 10 hit shelves. And the feature aims to help the estimated 1 billion people who suffer sleep apnea globally — 80% of whom are unaware they have this serious condition.
To understand how the feature works on Apple Watch specifically, Wareable spoke to Deirdre Caldbeck, who is part of the worldwide product marketing team for Apple Watch and Health at Apple, and Dr. Matt Bianchi, a research scientist on Apple’s Health Technologies team.
What is sleep apnea?
You may never have heard of sleep apnea before Apple and Samsung released their detection features. But the condition has been thrown into the spotlight somewhat.
Sleep Apnea is when someone experiences short, temporary interruptions to their breathing when they are asleep. Apple’s description in the Health app defines it as:
“A common condition where someone’s breathing is interrupted night after night. In any given sleep session, you could experience anything from just a few disturbances to more than 30 per hour.”
This can, of course, mean disrupted sleep, which leads to a person with sleep apnea feeling tired during the day. The condition can also increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
There are a couple of different types of sleep apnea, with ‘obstructive’ being the most common and ‘central’ being less common.
The Apple Watch sleep apnea feature covers both. Dr. Matt Bianchi said: “Our feature can consider sleep apnea in general, so there is not a sub-distinction there, but we included all types of sleep apnea in the trial. There were no exclusions in that regard.”
How Sleep Apnea detection works on the Apple Watch
Apple uses a three-axis accelerometer within the Apple Watch for the sleep apnea detection feature.
The accelerometer can detect your breathing at the wrist, and the Apple Watch uses machine learning to analyze the signal sequence to detect interruptions in breathing that can be associated with sleep apnea.
“We introduced a new metric called breathing disturbances that quantify how frequently those interruptions happen overnight. Even people without sleep apnea can have some interruptions at night.
“It can perhaps signal how restful your sleep is, and it can change from night to night depending on things like alcohol intake or maybe what body position you’re in, on your back versus on your side,” Dr. Bianchi explained.
If the Health app sees consistent signs of Sleep Apnea, it will surface the notification. It triggers on the Apple Watch and in the Health app with more information.
Apple advises people to talk to their doctor about any notification and show them the one-page summary PDF presented in the Health app.
How to see Breathing Disturbances in the Health app
You can see the breathing disturbances data gathered by the Apple Watch in the Health app under Respiratory > Breathing Disturbances.
While you may not have sleep apnea yourself, breathing disturbances can also be caused by other factors such as alcohol or sleeping position. They can therefore be an informative metric to look at regardless.
Deirdre Caldbeck said: “It can also be used even if you don’t have sleep apnea to just get some insight into the restfulness of your sleep. And so if you don’t have sleep apnea but you’re having trouble sleeping, you could do that correlation between your breathing disturbances data and alcohol consumption or maybe feeling symptoms like fatigue or if you have a cold. That information would be available to you in the Health app.”
Which Apple Watch models offer the sleep apnea detection feature?
The sleep apnea detection feature is available on Apple Watch Series 10 models, as well as Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.
The post How Apple sleep apnea detection works – explained by Apple research scientist appeared first on Wareable.
