IoT For All at CES: Healthy Living, with IoT Healthcare

Illustration: © IoT For All Virtual CES 2021 is in full swing, and there’s no end in sight for innovations and inventions pouring into the newsrooms, including ours. We’re bringing you the highlights all week (here’s Day 1 and Day 2 ), and today’s roundup is all about your well-being.

Source: IoT For All at CES: Healthy Living, with IoT Healthcare

IoT Healthcare, both at home and in the medical facility, is a critical growth area for the industry, and not just on the Consumer front. Our own Michelle Kammerman grabbed a few minutes to dig into the passive BP monitor by Valencell, and Ken Briodagh took a tour around the press room and is bringing you some of his favorite prescriptions for IoT Healthcare success. 

The doctor is in. 

Valencell Creates Cuffless and Passive Blood Pressure Monitor Technology for Wearables

Valencell is revolutionizing the way we all think about measuring our blood pressure. It provides the sensor technology for wearable alternatives to passively monitor blood pressure (BP) for at-risk, health-conscious individuals – enabling an at-home, on-the-go wearable alternative to traditional blood pressure monitoring cuffs. The company recently introduced its cuffless, calibration-free BP Monitoring System to the commercial market for IoT Healthcare.

The technology involves a sensor that uses volumetric circulation data from wearables to monitor blood pressure levels, which is especially impactful for an estimated one-third of Americans suffering from hypertension. Valencell also utilizes machine learning to continuously improve its technology with increased sensor integrations. 

So How Does This Technology Work, Exactly?

Valencell has been developing its photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor technology, an IoT healthcare optical sensing technique for measuring blood circulation volume, for more than a decade. These sensors are designed to capture blood flow patterns with the use of light.

Based on the amount of light reflected back onto the sensors, Valencell calculates biometrics such as heart and respiration rate. It then combines those results with user data such as height and weight and runs it all through an embedded machine learning model for continuous monitoring.

How is This Technology Used?

Use cases for this technology remain primarily in the fitness and wellness wearables space. However, with further integration of artificial intelligence, the company said it hopes medical use cases can become possible in the future.

“I envision a future world where individuals can improve their health with information that their own body provides to them integrating wearable technology,” said Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President and Co-founder of Valencell. “The big innovation and goal is to design accurate, powerful sensors to passively pull information from your body while you’re moving around and going about your day.”

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The work that Valencell is doing is really interesting, but of course it’s not the only doctor in the house. Let’s take a look at some of the other CES IoT Healthcare options, shall we?

Binah.ai Offers Connected Workplace Health

Binah.ai, a provider of AI monitoring tools, this week announced the launch of Binah Team, a solution designed to help companies offer a health and wellness monitoring application to employees. The company says the monitor measures heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiration rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and mental stress, among other vital stats by visually scanning users’ faces with their cell phone cameras. According to the release, it collects the health data by analyzing signals from the upper cheek of a human face in less than a minute with medical-grade accuracy.

Airthings Introduces Virus Risk Indicator Device

Among the capabilities of the new Wave Plus for Business indoor air quality monitor by Airthings reportedly is an IoT-equipped Virus Risk Indicator solution. The company said this week that the Virus Risk Indicator combines data from Wave Plus for Business’s CO2, humidity, temperature, and airborne pollutants sensors into a proprietary algorithm that calculates the risk level of virus transmission in a building. The algorithm is programmed to evaluate four factors that correlate with airborne virus spread, Airthings said: virus survival rate, body’s natural defense, room occupancy, and ventilation rate.

Humetrix Unveils AI-Powered SaaS Platform for Pandemic Response 

At CES All Digital 2021, Humetrix is showing off its new platform, reportedly powered by AI, and designed to support the pandemic response through the company’s enterprise SaaS healthcare analytics platform. The platform has been live since early in the pandemic, in March 2020. It was used to generate notifications for mobile application users about specific risks for severe COVID-19 disease. Now, Humetrix has revealed its new Mobile COVID-19 Vaccination Record for use with its iBlueButton and SOS QR mobile applications. Users now can display, share, or print COVID-19 vaccination records on their mobile devices. 

Samsung Health Smart Trainer on Samsung TVs

Samsung is leveraging its smart TVs to help make home gyms more accessible, thanks to this week’s CES announcements from Samsung Health. According to the release, the new Smart Trainer4 feature tracks and analyzes posture in real-time, and provides feedback on form, counts reps, and estimates calories burned during workouts. It reportedly also features video and interactive training via Bixby-enabled voice control for a custom workout experience.

Withings Selects Sequans to Connect Smart Health Devices

Personal health brand Withings announced this week that Sequans Communications Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT technology is now the connectivity enabler for the company’s next generation of IoT healthcare devices. Withings offers a wide range of devices, including activity trackers, body weight and cardio monitors, blood pressure monitors, and sleep analyzers.

The company said in the release that the new Monarch 2 GM02S module offers several improvements over the previous model, including 60 percent improvement in power consumption and a certifiable EAL5+ secure enclave for integrated SIM (ieUICC) capability that is compliant with GSMA standards and a single rail power supply starting at 2.2 volts.