Feature: Medical


[Image: Tyler Hendy for Unsplash]


Smartwatches edge toward becoming medical


devices By James Hayward, Principal Analyst, IDTechEx


O


f the nearly $70bn wearable technology market in 2019, $20bn came from medical devices and additional $28bn


from non-medical products such as fitness and infotainment wearables that integrate physiological monitoring. The two sectors – medical and fitness – are separated by regulatory barriers. However, introducing increasingly- sophisticated physiological monitoring techniques into products such as smartwatches shows the ambitions of consumer electronics companies to enter the field of medicine.


Medicine into watches The smart watch by consumer electronics giant Apple is already undergoing major updates in its operating system watchOS 7 (and soon watchOS 8), which include new health apps such as “mobility metrics”, covering low-range cardio fitness, walking and stair descent/ascent speed, distance, double support time, step


38 May 2021 www.electronicsworld.co.uk


Medical approval will give smartwatches an interesting marketing edge, and lead to higher sales prices


length, and asymmetry. These features use motion sensing that has been included in each edition of the product, illustrating the advancement in the algorithms used to characterise motion. Previously, watch motion analysis was prominently used in features like step counting, activity characterisation and fall detection alerts – one of the first medical-related functions in this watch. The most prominent medical feature


on the Apple’s smartwatch was the ECG monitoring introduced with the Apple Watch 4 in late 2018. Apple gained FDA Class II clearance for the ability to detect and notify the user of irregular heart


rhythm, and an ECG app that could be used to identify potential signs of atrial fibrillation. These were implemented by using the watch’s crown or strap as an electrode, with biopotential measured at the finger. This functionality was very similar to another product, the KardiaBand from AliveCor. Originally available as a third-party accessory for the Apple Watch with an accompanying app, KardiaBand was discontinued in 2019 after Apple integrated the feature into its core product. Another example of medical metric


into smartwatches is wearable pulse oximetry, which involves measuring oxygen saturation (known as spO2


)


via photonic sensing system involving red and infrared light. Traditionally, pulse oximetry would be done via a transmissive approach (e.g., measured on the finger using a finger-clip device), but recent advances have also demonstrated a reflective version that can be integrated into a smartwatch. This has been announced in both non- medical products from companies such as Garmin, Fitbit and Withings, but


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