The Apple Watch just got a whole lot more indispensable! Today, two major announcements were made — both of which mean that Apple’s wearable device could one day save your life.

Firstly, Apple has teamed up with Stanford Medicine to launch a Watch app that will not only alert uses who are experiencing irregular heart rhythms, but actually get them help.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has given AliveCor’s Kardiaband EKG (Electrocardiogram) reader official approval to become the first medical device accessory for the Apple Watch.

A life-saving app

Apple’s Stanford collaboration is designed to help fight irregular heart rhythms, which can be fatal if untreated. This condition, called atrial fibrillation or AFib, is responsible for approximately 130,000 deaths and 750,000 hospitalizations in the United States every year. Because a lot of people don’t experience symptoms, AFib can go undiagnosed.

In order to work out heart rate and rhyme, the Apple Watch’s sensor flashes green LED lights at a rate of several hundred per second, as well as using light-sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through the wrist. Using AI technology, the Apple Watch can then isolate heart rhythms from other noise and identify when a heart is not beating as it should do.

In the event that an irregular heart rhythm is identified, people who have downloaded the app (which involves agreeing to participate in an associated study) will receive a notification on their Apple Watch and iPhone, a free consultation with a study doctor, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch for additional monitoring.

“Through the Apple Heart Study, Stanford Medicine faculty will explore how technology like Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor can help usher in a new era of proactive health care central to our Precision Health approach,” said Lloyd Minor, Dean of Stanford University School of Medicine. “We’re excited to work with Apple on this breakthrough heart study.”

The new Apple Heart Study app is available to users of the Apple Watch Series 1 and later who live in the United States.

The first FDA approved device

AliveCor’s Kardiaband EKG reader, meanwhile, also monitors for atrial fibrillation (AFib), but via an accessory. The Kardiaband fits into a slot on the Watch band, and lets users get an EKG reading discreetly just touching the band’s integrated sensor.

While Apple’s existing hardware is able to detect irregular heart rhythms, the specialized Kardiaband goes one step further by gathering medically approved EKG measurements. It’s this peer-reviewed approach that has won it officially FDA approval.

If you’re interested, you can buy a Kardiaband starting today for $199 on AlivCor’s site. You’ll also need to subscribe to AliveCor’s premium service for $99 a year.

Want to protect yourself as well as possible? Why not buy AlivCor’s hardware and download Apple’s app, too?