Rockley Photonics, one of Apple’s suppliers, today released a new advanced digital sensor system. The new system may land on Apple Watch in the future and bring a brand-new health tracking function. The company announced today a complete full-stack wrist clinic digital health sensor system that enables wearable devices to monitor multiple biomarkers, including core body temperature, blood pressure, body water content, alcohol, lactic acid, and blood sugar trends and many more.
The new technology uses a miniaturized chip solution in which optical sensors can perform continuous, non-invasive monitoring of various biomarkers. Many wearable devices use green LEDs to monitor heart rate, but Rockley’s sensors use infrared spectrophotometers to detect and monitor a wider range of biomarkers, which greatly improves the functionality of wearable devices. The laser produced by the sensor can non-invasively detect the skin underneath, and analyze the specific components and physical phenomena of blood, interstitial fluid, and dermis.
Rockley’s initial full-stack sensing solution is a wristband, which contains a sensor module and communicates with an application, which will be used in some human studies in the next few months. Apple is Rockley’s largest customer, and most of its revenue in the past two years has come from Apple. This means that this new sensor system is likely to land on the Apple Watch in the future, and it may appear on the Apple Watch Series 8 next year as soon as possible.
