New patents reveal how Samsung intends to add continuous blood pressure and glucose to its wearables.
Samsung is closing in on a pair of sought after features for wearable devices, as revealed by a pair of patent applications filed last week.
The Galaxy Watch maker has publicly stated its desire to bring continuous blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring to its consumer devices.
Now we have insight into how the company, which will add the Galaxy Ring to its wearable stable this summer, intends to achieve those lofty goals.
In an interview in January, Samsung’s mobile digital health chief Hon Pak said: “If we can do continuous blood pressure and glucose, we’re in a whole different ballgame.”
Firstly, in a new patent filing spied by Wareable, Samsung explains how it could estimate blood pressure via PPG sensors – the existing heart rate monitoring technology within its smartwatches.
The patent says: “A variety of signal sensors are being developed to measure such [health monitoring] signals in daily life. Particularly, in the case of a PPG sensor, it is possible to estimate blood pressure of a human body by analysing a form of pulse wave that reflects a cardiovascular state.”
PPG sensing tech
The technology seemingly doesn’t require additional hardware features, with Samsung intending to utilise the existing PPG sensor and LED light combination.
According to the patent, the PPG sensor would measure an initial cardiac output (CO). This means the amount of blood pumped by the heart per minute. It would also twice measure the total peripheral resistance (TPR) – the amount of amount of force exerted on circulating blood by the vasculature of the body.
This would enable the processors, through a little algorithmic wizardry, to estimate the higher (systolic) and lower (diastolic) blood pressure readings and output them on the watch’s display like a traditional BP monitor you’d see at your GP’s office.
Samsung also outlines how the reading would change based on the posture of the wearer, which would be one of the challenges around getting consistent readings from a wrist-worn device.
The technology would enable users to get 24/7 readings of their blood pressure readings, rather than the snapshot they receive when visiting a GP, for example.
Blood glucose sensing patents
Non-invasive blood glucose monitoring is mentioned in a second patent, which was published on the same day.
The patent more broadly refers to the continuous measurement of blood flow velocity, based on the variances in blood temperature measured by sensors and induced by a heat source within the wearable device.
The patent says: [It could] predict a change in blood glucose compared to the reference time based on the difference between the estimated blood flow velocity and a reference blood flow velocity.”
Samsung says the technology could advise users to check blood glucose levels. Although this isn’t blood glucose detection per se, it could provide an ample warning for diabetes sufferers to check via conventional means.
The filing continues: “For example, if the variation in blood flow velocity is less than or equal to a threshold value, the processor may predict an increase in blood glucose levels, leading to an increase in blood viscosity… upon predicting the increase in blood glucose levels … based on the variation in blood flow velocity, the processor may generate and provide warning information for a user.”
It’s unclear whether Samsung will debut these features on a forthcoming Galaxy Watch hardware update. It may to introduce a Galaxy Watch Ultra this August.
The latter patent’s requirement to include a ‘heat source’ to the skin to induce blood temperature measurements could be problematic in practice.
However, it’s interesting to see the workings-out behind the company’s public statements it is looking to incorporate these two long-chased features.
