Samsung has unveiled a new project to expand in the healthcare sector with its connected mobile devices. The Samsung Digital Health Initiative, presented at an event in San Francisco by Samsung’s Strategy and Innovation Center team, is based on open hardware and software platforms to develop sensors, algorithms and data collection and analysis systems for the health sector. Samsung demonstrated its own first product from the platform, a connected wristband that can be used to track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure. The Korean company is working with the University of California, San Francisco to develop the platform.
The open hardware platform is known as Simband, a reference design for wearable technology, capable of integrating advanced sensing technologies. Simband is being designed in a modular way, allowing for innovation in areas like battery life, form factor and noninvasive sensor technology by different companies. Other companies are invited to use the reference platform to create and contribute their own advanced sensors, algorithms and other technologies. The platform will not be sold commercially.
On the software side, the company presented the Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions (SAMI), a cloud-based open software platform capable of bringing together fragmented data from a variety of sources for analysis. It will allow devices and sensors to store data securely in the cloud regardless of the source’s format or structure. Under Samsung’s approach, SAMI will allow data to be controlled by the individual generating it and not by third parties.
To support the Digital Health Initiative, Samsung also announced the Samsung Digital Health Challenge, a USD 50 million investment fund dedicated to innovative start-ups and technologies in the connected health area. The goal of the fund is to stimulate creative new approaches to digital health and Samsung’s open platforms.
