Smartwatches are increasingly packing health-monitoring tech, from heart rate monitoring to fall detection, and it now it appears that two of the biggest names in wearables are looking to add another potentially life-saving feature to their devices.
Both the Apple Watch 7 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, or Galaxy Watch Active 3, could apparently come with a glucometer for measuring blood sugar.
This news comes from a report in Korean news site ETNews, which says both Samsung and Apple are working on implementing glucose monitoring into their watches.
According to the report, both companies have already secured the technology for the feature, and are now working on properly integrating it into smartwatches, and ensuring it provides accurate results.
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Why this is so important
The group who would most obviously benefit from having glucometers in a wearable are diabetics, who constantly need to monitor their blood sugar levels in order to stay healthy, or know when to take a supplement or snack.
For diabetics who can't or won't (for whatever reason) use a traditional glucometer, such a feature in a smartwatch would be game-changing, especially if it's quick and convenient to use. That would be doubly true if smartwatches could replace normal glucometers completely, due to the portability and ease of use.
Blood sugar isn't only important to diabetics though, and people with a variety of medical conditions could benefit. Low blood sugar is a common cause of migraines, for example, and it can also make people feel faint, fatigued and irritable.
So if Samsung and Apple were to use glucometers in their smartwatches, the feature could prove useful to a range of people, and may even be life-saving in some cases.
