Approved by Australia’s health regulator the TGA, the Apple Watch is able to monitor disturbances during the night to give notifications to the wearer of a potential sleep apnea diagnosis.

Sleep apnea is a huge health problem that can lead to high blood pressure, fatigue, type 2 diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and even a shortened lifespan, and, as Dr Matt Bianchi, research scientist at Apple told 9News, most people who have it simply do not know.

“We’re talking about a billion people worldwide with this condition, but 80 per cent of those individuals don’t have a diagnosis currently, they are not aware they have it,” he said.

Critically, Bianchi explains, sleep apnea can be treated.

“This is a treatable disorder, so the chance for us at that scale worldwide to chip away at that 80 per cent undiagnosed problem is the motivating factor for us.”

There are already products on the market that can detect sleep apnea, like the Withings Sleep Analyser which lays under the mattress and detects movement and sound, while other smart watches like the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 will also feature sleep apnea detection when available.

The Apple Watch is the first smartwatch on the market in Australia with this feature.

It works by detecting movement.

In fact, as Bianchi told 9News, your watch is able to feel every breath you take.

“The accelerometer sensor on the Apple Watch is a motion detector, but is very, very sensitive, even those small motions of breathing that you make while you sleep can be seen at the wrist by the accelerometer and that’s how we detect interruptions in breathing at the watch.”

Sleep apnea detection will be available on the most recent models of Apple Watch, the Series 9 and 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, and is available today through a software update.