Sleep, hearing health features introduced Apple Watch, Air Pods Pro 2

These new features expand across products, bringing informative and powerful ways to support users in their sleep and hearing health for conditions that impact billions globally.

Using an innovative new Breathing Disturbances metric, sleep apnea notifications come to Apple Watch, adding to the many ways Apple Watch acts as an intelligent guardian for users’ health.

The sleep apnea notifications are expected to receive marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other global health authorities soon, with availability this month in more than 150 countries and regions, including the U.S., the EU, and Japan.

Apple is providing the world’s first all-in-one hearing health experience with AirPods Pro with active Hearing Protection, a clinically validated Hearing Test feature, and an over-the-counter Hearing Aid feature.

The first-of-its-kind software-based Hearing Aid feature helps make access to hearing assistance easier than ever at an approachable price point.

The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are expected to receive marketing authorization from global health authorities soon, and will be available this fall in more than 100 countries and regions, including the U.S., Germany, and Japan.

“At Apple, we believe that technology can help you live a healthier life, and we’re excited to enable incredible new health capabilities for serious conditions that affect billions of people around the world, while continuing to keep user data private,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health. “With Apple Watch, we continue to offer our users the ability to uncover important health conditions with new sleep apnea notifications. And on AirPods Pro, powerful features put users’ hearing health front and center, bringing new ways to help test for and receive assistance for hearing loss.”

A Powerful Way to Detect Signs of Sleep Apnea

Sleep is an important area of health as it impacts a person’s overall physical and mental wellbeing.

Sleep apnea is a prevalent disorder in which breathing momentarily stops during sleep, preventing the body from getting enough oxygen.

The condition is estimated to impact more than 1 billion people worldwide, and in most cases, goes undiagnosed.

If left untreated, it can have important health consequences over time, including increased risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiac issues. Breathing Disturbances is an innovative new Apple Watch metric that uses the accelerometer to detect small movements at the wrist associated with interruptions to normal respiratory patterns during sleep.

Every 30 days, Apple Watch will analyze breathing disturbance data and notify users if it shows consistent signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea so they can speak to their doctor about next steps, including potential diagnosis and treatment.

Because overall quality of sleep is important, Breathing Disturbances can also be used to assess restfulness of sleep. Breathing Disturbances can be influenced by alcohol, medications, sleep position, and more.

Users can view their nightly Breathing Disturbances in the Health app, where they are classified as elevated or not elevated, and can be viewed over a one-month, six-month, or one-year period.

For more informed conversations with their healthcare providers, users can export a PDF that shows when sleep apnea may have occurred, three months of breathing disturbance data, and additional information.

Educational articles are also available within the Health app to help users learn more about sleep apnea.

The sleep apnea notification algorithm was developed using advanced machine learning and an extensive data set of clinical-grade sleep apnea tests.

The feature was then validated in a clinical study — unprecedented in size for sleep apnea technology. In the clinical validation study, every participant identified by the algorithm had at least mild sleep apnea.