The Apple Watch could be getting its biggest new feature in years: visual intelligence powered by AI and an on-watch camera.
This is according to noted Apple insider Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who says an Apple Watch with a camera may be on shelves by some time in 2027. That would mean it could be part of the Apple Watch Series 13 — or whatever we’re calling Apple’s wearables by then.
The concept isn’t too tricky to get your head around. A camera would let an Apple Watch see your surroundings, while AI-backed intelligence can work out what objects around you actually are.
According to this early report, the standard Apple Watch will have a camera that sits behind the screen, while the Apple Watch Ultra camera will be squeezed into the sidewall.
The all-seeing Apple Watch
This could let an Apple Watch do things like explain items on a restaurant menu, or do an online price search for something you find on the high street. We just made those up as a couple of potential uses for visual intelligence.
It’s not just going to be watches that get this visual intelligence either. Gurman writes a new version of the Apple AirPods earphones could get teeny-tiny cameras too.
However, the concept here is a little different. Your AirPods aren’t going to be looking for stuff in your surroundings.
Instead, an IR camera will be used to inform spatial audio, where the presentation of sound alters based on the direction you face. It could also be used for gesture control.
We don’t expect to see anything quite as dramatic as this in the Apple Watch Series 11, due later in 2025. It could introduce a feature we’ve been hearing about for years, though.
Blood pressure monitoring has been at the works at Apple HQ for ages, and may finally see a release this year. The key difficulty is in teasing blood pressure data out of optical heart rate reader hardware.
A conventional blood pressure cuff inflates around your arm in order to restrict blood flow. And while Huawei has recreated that tech in the Huawei Watch D2, it’s not the kind of thing that’s particularly feasible in a super-mainstream wearable like the Apple Watch.
