Medical smartwatches: Advancements in wearable healthcare technology
Smartwatches have helped to revolutionize how humans interact with technology, including personal health monitoring and optimization. Devices such as PK Vitality’s K’Watch, a Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) medical smartwatch, are increasingly utilized in modern healthcare practice, and the industry is only in its infancy. This article examines the current state of wearable technology in healthcare.
A brief history of smartwatches
The first ‘smartwatch’ dates to the 1970s, when the digital watch emerged as an alternative to traditional analog watches. Watches with calculators emerged in the 1980s, but it was not until 1998 when the Seiko Ruputer was released that a watch could connect to a computer to make to-do lists and update a calendar.
One of the first biometric-oriented smartwatches was the Suunto M4, which was designed to monitor a wearer’s heart rate, track physical activity, and provide suggestions for weight management. However, it was not until the 2012 launch of the Pebble smartwatch that the wearable market truly took off. Pebble’s innovative design featured a black-and-white e-paper display and long battery life. Following Pebble’s release, Apple, Garmin, Samsung, and Google all entered the market, driving further innovation.
Monitoring health with a smartwatch
Today, most smartwatches are also equipped with sensors to measure the wearer’s heart rate and blood oxygen levels, and even detect irregular heartbeats. These capabilities make them invaluable tools for monitoring health conditions and detecting potential health issues before they become serious.
For example, the most recent Apple Watch – the Series 8 – includes an incredible list of capabilities:
- Monitors body temperature to allow for insights into women’s health
- Identifies sleep stages for a better understanding of sleep patterns
- Measures blood oxygen levels
- Takes an ECG reading as accurate as a single-lead electrocardiogram machine
- Alerts users of detected irregularities in heartbeat rhythms
- Utilizes crash detection in the case of an emergency via accelerometers, such as ADXL356BEZ
Apple is the current industry leader in smartwatch technology, outselling the entire Swiss watch industry since 2020. Samsung and its Galaxy series are the most prominent option for Android users.
Other fitness-oriented smartwatches from Garmin, Fitbit, and Polar provide insight into overall health and wellness as well as activity-specific performance. For example, the Garmin Fenix series can calculate average daily resting and active heart rate (and provide abnormal heart rate alerts), identify respiration rates, sense blood oxygen levels, monitor sleep cycles, and use collected data to calculate Body Battery™ and Sleep Score Insights. They also host a full suite of sensors to track activities, including a barometric altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer, and pulse/blood oxygen saturation monitor to provide performance statistics during exercise. Smartwatches with medical features don’t do all of these things, but they can do a specific thing more accurately than a consumer-grade watch.
What is a medical-grade smartwatch?
While both consumer and medical-grade smartwatches offer a range of health and fitness tracking features, there are some key differences between the two. Medical-grade smartwatches meet specific regulatory requirements and have been clinically validated for use in a healthcare setting. These medical smartwatches are typically more accurate and reliable than consumer-grade smartwatches, making them more suitable for monitoring chronic conditions and providing medical professionals with real-time data. Medical-grade smartwatches also include wearable medical alert system functionality, which can provide critical signals to the patient and provider during an emergency.
Purpose-built models may be smartwatch glucose monitors (CGM smartwatches) or focus on ECG monitoring, remote patient monitoring (RPM), or even wearable drug delivery. For example, ADI’s Vital Sign Monitoring (VSM) smartwatch, developed in collaboration with Vitruvian Shield, can track vital signals that help predict epileptic episodes. ADI also provides the VSM watch as an evaluation tool via its EVAL-HCRWATCH4Z.
Omron, famous for its blood pressure monitors, recently released its smartwatch product HeartGuide, a clinically accurate, wearable blood pressure monitor. And PK Vitality’s K’Watch has dramatically improved the lives of diabetes patients who no longer have to regularly prick their fingers for a blood test.
Wearable healthcare technology of the future
Recent advancements in medical smartwatches mean that patients have new ways to monitor and manage their health while also providing healthcare providers with new tools for remote patient intervention. As medical-grade and medical alert smartwatch technologies continue to advance, we expect to see an even broader adoption of smartwatches in healthcare. These same technologies will likely influence the consumer-grade smartwatch industry, eventually making access to biometric data even more expansive than in today’s devices.
Browse an assortment of products that assist in the evolution of wearable healthcare technology, like accelerometers, sensors, and more from industry-leading manufacturers at Arrow.com.
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