Samsung Racing to Beat Apple to Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Technology

Samsung is striving to beat Apple to launch non-invasive blood glucose monitoring technology, as well as continuous blood pressure tracking features, Bloomberg reports.

galaxy watch6 models
The efforts are part of the company's wider push to offer more health capabilities, embodied by the recent announcement of the Galaxy Ring, which touts activity and sleep tracking, with more health features set to arrive later. In a new interview, 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. I think that's where everyone is trying to get to. We're putting significant investment toward that.

[...]

We are looking at everything from miniaturization to the various different technology platforms that can do some type of glucose monitoring or anything in between.

Pak declined to comment on a time frame for launching either of the features in specific Samsung devices, but believes that non-invasive glucose monitoring technology could come to market in some form within five years. Current blood glucose monitoring systems usually requires pricking the skin, but Apple has reportedly been working on a unique non-invasive approach for over a decade. The company is believed to have made major progress with the technology, increasing pressure on rivals to provide competing features.

While Samsung smartwatches already offer the ability to determine a user's blood pressure, the capability is not constant and requires specific calibration with a separate blood pressure monitor. Apple is purportedly planning to add hypertension detection to the Apple Watch later this year with no calibration requirement, but it will not provide exact readings, instead simply informing users that they may have elevated blood pressure.

Like Apple, Samsung is also reportedly exploring adding health sensors to future versions of its earbuds, such as body temperature and heart rate monitoring, since the ear is a closer pathway to the heart than the wrist. Health information from the ear could be combined with data already collected from the wrist for even greater accuracy.

Top Rated Comments

sniffies Avatar
17 weeks ago
Take your time, Apple.

We prefer quality rather than Samsung's WE DID IT FIRST.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KPOM Avatar
17 weeks ago
Competition is a good thing that keeps both companies working to make their products better.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MuppetGate Avatar
17 weeks ago

Take your time, Apple.

We prefer quality rather than Samsung's WE DID IT FIRST.
If I remember, Samsung had a smart watch before Apple released the Apple Watch, so yes, being first to market doesn’t mean anything.

Yet another Bloomberg article attempting to shift share prices.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
moabal Avatar
17 weeks ago
Non-invasive glucose monitoring is the holy grail. If Apple can figure it out, everyone will get an Apple Watch.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Catasstrophy Avatar
17 weeks ago

Sigh.

Such features have their uses when needed, but I think it is not a good idea for most people to persistently monitor and to “doctor” themselves. We are setting up ourselves to become like Felix Unger from The Odd Couple. One Felix Unger was enough and funny, but millions or billions of them could be a healthcare mess.

I think companies should promote devices that encourages users to meditate, be still, or be mindful. These activities could alleviate or fix many of the chronic ailments that burden us today.
Companies literally do this, right now. Samsung and Apple both had it as headlining features in the last year or so. Unfortunately meditation and mindfulness doesn't make my body less insulin resistant.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
17 weeks ago

I wonder how you can measure blood glucose without any form of pricking the skin. What are the mechanics behind it?
There are other methods but this is who Apple has been partnering with: https://www.fastcompany.com/90730050/apple-partner-rockley-photonics-blood-sugar

"Current wearable glucose monitors detect glucose levels through the body fluid that runs between cells. It requires injecting a piece of filament into your arm through a needle, a process that’s not painful so much as it is jarring (especially for anyone with a fear of needles). Everyone agrees that being able to slap a smartwatch on your wrist to track glucose would be a far better experience, but it has been difficult to miniaturize the necessary technology.

"Rockley has figured out a way to make the necessary sensors small enough to fit on a wrist and developed machine learning to better understand a person’s glucose reading. It built a chip-based spectrophotometer, which means it can use a variety of light sources to measure biometrics through skin. The company then uses artificial intelligence to understand what those sugar levels mean within the context of an individual to answer whether their sugar is too high, too low, or average."
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

General Apps Messages

iMessage Down for Some Users [Update: Service Restored]

Thursday May 16, 2024 3:00 pm PDT by
The iMessage service that Apple users to send messages to one another appears to be down for some users, and messages are failing to go out or are taking an extra long time to send. There are numerous reports about the issue on social networks and a spike of outage reports on Down Detector, but Apple's System Status page is not yet reporting an outage. Update: Apple's status page says...
iOS 17

Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos

Wednesday May 15, 2024 5:29 am PDT by
There are concerning reports on Reddit that Apple's latest iOS 17.5 update has introduced a bug that causes old photos that were deleted – in some cases years ago – to reappear in users' photo libraries. After updating their iPhone, one user said they were shocked to find old NSFW photos that they deleted in 2021 suddenly showing up in photos marked as recently uploaded to iCloud. Other...
iphone 15 pro max vs iphone 16 pro max

iPhone 16 Pro Max Looks This Much Bigger Beside iPhone 15 Pro Max

Thursday May 16, 2024 4:51 am PDT by
This year's upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to get a boost in overall size from 6.7-inches to 6.9-inches, and a new image gives us a good idea of how the current iPhone 15 Pro Max compares to what could be Apple's largest ever iPhone. The image above, posted on X by ZONEofTECH, shows a dummy model representing the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ Max alongside an actual iPhone 15 Pro Max. Dummy...
iOS 17

iOS 17.5 Bug May Also Resurface Deleted Photos on Wiped, Sold Devices

Friday May 17, 2024 12:24 pm PDT by
A bug in iOS 17.5 is apparently causing photos that have been deleted to reappear, and the issue seems to impact even iPhones and iPads that have been erased and sold off to other people. A Reddit user wiped an iPad following Apple's guidelines in September of 2023 before selling it off to a friend. That friend updated the iPad to iPadOS 17.5 this week, and began seeing the Reddit user's old ...
oled m4 ipad pro grainy display reports

OLED iPad Pro Users Report 'Grainy' Displays, But It May Not Be a Defect

Friday May 17, 2024 5:57 am PDT by
Some new M4 iPad Pro models are exhibiting a visible static grain pattern across the OLED display, according to several user reports on Reddit (1, 2, 3) and the MacRumors Forums. Image credit: MacRumors user bk215 Users who see the grain generally report that it is most noticeable in dark environments with the display set at a low to medium brightness while viewing content with gray or muted...
Delta Hands On Feature

iPhone Emulators on the App Store: Game Boy, N64, PS1, PSP, and More

Thursday May 16, 2024 12:45 pm PDT by
In April, Apple updated its guidelines to allow retro game emulators on the App Store, and several popular emulators have already been released. The emulators released so far allow iPhone users to play games released for older consoles from Nintendo, Sony, SEGA, Atari, and others. A list of some popular emulators available on the App Store so far follows. Released Delta Delta is...