In July Patently Apple posted a Patently Mobile IP report titled "Meta seeks to add a 'Blood Pressure' app to their future Meta Watch that was first revealed in a Q1-24 Patent filing" The report noted that "a new Meta Watch patent came to light in Europe relating to users being able to use a Meta Watch in conjunction with a modern blood pressure device to present users with digital details of their blood pressure data related to Systolic and Diastolic readings."  

In late August 2024, the European Patent Office published a new patent application from Meta titled "Use of Electromyography (EMG) Electrodes for Physiological Measurements."

The invention covers methods, devices, and media for determining physiological characteristics. In some embodiments, a method involves obtaining an electromyography (EMG) signal representing muscle activity from an EMG electrode disposed in or on a band of a wrist-worn device, and a photoplethysmography (PPG) signal using a PPG sensor of the wrist-worn device. The method may involve generating a modified PPG signal using the EMG signal, wherein the modified PPG signal corrects for motion artifacts in the PPG signal due to motion activity of a wearer of the wrist-worn device. The method may involve determining at least one physiological characteristic based on the modified PPG signal.

In addition, Meta's patent FIG. 4 presented below reveals that their smartwatch is designed to include a "Virtual Reality Engine."

Meta also envisions their watch including a camera used to take photos or videos including its environment, for example, for VR, AR, or MR applications.

The camera (#450) may include, for example, a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor with a few millions or tens of millions of pixels. In some implementations, the camera system may also include two or more cameras for use in capturing 3-D images.

Meta's European Patent application 4420605 was published on August 28, 2024. 

Whether Meta has the chutzpah to take on the Apple Watch is unknown at this time, but it's clear that their working on technologies that could give them an edge should they decide to pull the trigger.