A future Apple Watch could track blood sugar without needles – but don’t expect it soon
Apple’s long-running health project has reportedly hit an important new phase
Apple’s dream of turning its Apple Watch smartwatch into a non-invasive blood sugar monitor apparently isn’t dead yet. In fact, a new report suggests the company may finally be inching closer to making it a reality.
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According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has shifted oversight of its long-running glucose monitoring project from platform architecture chief Tim Millet to senior engineering leader Zongjian Chen – a move some inside the company reportedly see as a positive sign for the technology’s future.
The idea itself sounds fantasmical – rather than relying on finger-prick blood tests or wearable continuous glucose monitors that sit under the skin, Apple is apparently exploring a system that uses lasers and light to estimate glucose levels non-invasively.
Bloomberg previously reported that the technology works by shining specific wavelengths of light beneath the skin and analysing the reflected signal to detect glucose concentration within interstitial fluid.
If Apple eventually cracks it, the implications would be enormous. Millions of people living with diabetes could potentially monitor blood sugar levels far more comfortably, while Apple has also reportedly explored ways the technology could help identify early signs of prediabetes.
Don’t get your hoes up too much though –reports surrounding Apple’s glucose-monitoring ambitions stretch back years – in some cases all the way to the Steve Jobs era – and Gurman previously said the feature remained many years away, despite more than 15 years of development work.
One of the biggest challenges is accuracy. Blood glucose readings aren’t like step counting or sleep tracking – they need to be medically reliable. Even tiny errors can have serious consequences for people managing diabetes, which is why fully non-invasive consumer glucose monitoring remains an unsolved problem across the wider tech and medical industry.
Bloomberg previously reported that Apple had achieved a proof-of-concept milestone for the technology in 2023, although the early prototype system was reportedly too large to fit inside an Apple Watch.
So while future versions of the Apple Watch Ultra or standard Apple Watch models may eventually gain the feature, it’s unlikely to appear any time soon. Still, the fact Apple continues investing heavily in the project – and has now reportedly handed it to one of its key engineering leaders – suggests the company still sees it as one of wearable tech’s biggest possible breakthroughs.
Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
