The FDA-approved Natural Cycles birth control platform can now be integrated into the Apple Watch.
The contraceptive brand analyzes a user’s daily body temperature to determine their fertility status. Now, instead of taking their temperature orally, users can rely on their Apple Watch. Apple added temperature sensors to its Watch last September.
“In the first year of launching Natural Cycles, many people, including myself, said, ‘Oh, if only the Apple Watch added a temperature sensor,’ we wouldn’t need to measure in their mouth,” said the co-founder and CEO of Natural Cycles. Elina Berglund.
According to Berglund, when Apple announced it would add the temperature sensor to its watch, requests flooded in from Natural Cycles users.
“It became our number one request from our users, so we started collecting data and doing clinical studies to validate it, and we submitted it to the FDA, which they authorized a few years ago weeks,” she told WWD.
During the clinical evaluation, Natural Cycles, which received $7 million in funding from Samsung Ventures in February, analyzed 272 women and 505 complete menstrual cycles. Similar to an oral thermometer and the Oura Ring, Natural Cycles found the Apple Watch to be 93% effective in preventing pregnancy. with “typical use” and 98% effective with “perfect use”.
When wearing an Apple Watch and using Natural Cycles, a user will allow Apple Health to track temperature which can then be synced to the Natural Cycles app, making the process more convenient.
“What really changes is the ease of use,” Berglund said. “It’s just easier to sleep with than to remember to do something in the morning when you wake up.”
Before joining Apple, Natural Cycles also partnered with Oura. Thanks to this integration, temperatures are recorded via the Oura Ring. According to Berglund, those who use the Oura Ring outnumber those who take their own temperature for more days than those who take their own temperature. Even if that’s the case, Berglund doesn’t think the use of thermometers will ever go away for the brand.
“Women are different and they want to have options, what works for them, so I think there will always be women who use the thermometer,” she said.
With the success of the Oura partnership and Apple’s integration requests, Berglund expects wearables to continue to drive business and perhaps help acquire new customers who haven’t tried the brand because that they don’t want to take their temperature daily.
“We expect it to be significant and we expect the demand to be very high, because we see how often we get this demand, that users want to use Natural Cycles with their Apple Watch, because we know that So many women already have an Apple Watch, including many of our existing users today,” she said.
The brand, which nearly doubled its subscription sales (subscriptions cost $99 per year) between August 2022 and August 2023, plans to partner with other wearables brands in the future.
“It seems like more and more wearables are adding temperature sensor capabilities, which is great for us,” Berglund said. “We want to offer integration with the biggest players in the market.”
