Keep calm, carry on
Samsung is rolling out blood pressure monitoring on the Galaxy Watch Active 2 watch after receiving approval from the South Korean drug safety agency. As that statement suggests, the functionality will only be available in S. Korea to start with (as with Samsung’s deployment of ECG monitoring) but we can expect that the company will be pushing hard to get similar approvals elsewhere in the world. The blood pressure feature needs to be initially calibrated with a blood pressure cuff, and then re-calibrated very four weeks for optimum accuracy (packaged sales deal perhaps of watch plus cuff?) but in between calibrations the wearer can use the pulse wave analysis to measure their blood pressure anytime, anywhere. And so the quantifiable-self movement continues to push forward.
The NPD Take:
- While the addition of blood pressure monitoring is, so far, limited to S. Korea, we can expect Samsung to be working hard to gain approvals elsewhere in the world. Smartwatches are rapidly becoming far more focused on health tracking, rather than simply sleep and activity, which will broaden the appeal of these devices.
Stay well, play on
The smart ring manufacturer, Oura, gained another major boost this past week with news that the NBA plans to ask all players to wear the smart ring in a bid to detect infected players far earlier than they might otherwise. There are concerns for the players, of course, such as who will ultimately have access to this highly personal health data (did player X sleep well the night before the game? If not, why not?) but it’s certainly yet another boost for the smart ring category – and Oura in particular.
The NPD Take:
- Oura is carving out a strong niche for itself in the health and wellness space. We can expect other companies to start looking more aggressively at the space and, as we’ve said before, there is an opportunity for a smartwatch company to add a ring as a complementary accessory to the watch to collect more detailed health stats. Our bet is that Oura could be a purchase target for a larger OEM within the year.