There are various reasons why the most advanced countries are also those that have increased, in the various decades, the life expectancy. Among these, they play an important role both accessing care when a problem is presented and a better one diagnosis and prevention.
In recent years the technological evolution allowed to obtain, through wrist sensors, measurements on the parameters related to health that are now comparable to medical devices In some respects, or in any case they propose a negligible error. Some are even certified as medical devices, we have recently seen it with the D2 Watch.
The dream of a Continuous and quote monitoring of health as in science fiction films? Is there a future in which our watch analyzes the imperceptible variations of blood pressure and warns us before the symptom of a bigger problem can occur?
Is the future today?
To this question they are trying to answer many, because The decade business It will no longer be linked to tracing sports, but the goal of Apple, Huawei, Samsung and other technological brands, will be that of put a device on the wrist of each that can turn into ours personal medical laboratoryopen 24/7, able to make the ECG, read the blood pressure and, even, to have the sulter without them realizing it.
Among the most active producers in this sense there is Huawei: the giant in China dominates in all the sectors in which it is involved, but in the West it has almost disappeared from the smartphone world due to the impossibility of using Google services. Such a blow would have brought many to their knees, but the roots deeply rooted in the Chinese fabric have allowed Huawei to work closely with the technological development of China itself: today the company produces its chips, but above all it makes research and development to detach from the machinery and western patents.
Huawei manages the brain of autonomous driving carshas its own operating system on smartphones, and has also launched the one for PCs so as to be ready for a possible detachment from Windows (not that it is in the air, let’s be understood). And, in the meantime, he has never stopped selling his smartwatch and fitness bands in Europe, because wearables are devices less dependent on Google services and can work for 80/90% of their functions, even without the support of Made in the USA software.
Truesense: the technological turning point for Huawei
Huawei has been working on its wearable devices for 10 yearsand never stopped in research and development. In China we visited the research workshops exclusively dedicated to health and physical activities, of the “gyms” where you run, swim and you are monitored to refine the algorithms that grind the data collected by very small sensors.
It should be acknowledged that the efforts put in place by the Chinese producer are enormous, just as his pockets are deep given the interconnection with the government plans he wants improve, through technology, health of the Chinese.
There great turning It arrived in 2024 with the new Truesensea system made by hardware and software that in 2025, the year of the new decade for wearables, improves further by adding a second sensor (X-TAP) for the fingertips and allows you to do an ECG in 30 seconds.
The road Tracked by Huawei in less than 12 months, by the Watch GT 5 by passing through Watch D2 (measures the pressure with a loser in the strap) and going today to the new Watch 5 (read the review here) and Watch 4 Pro, goes to two directions: Continuous monitoring and measurements (Almost) snapshot And precise. To read oxygen in the blood, for example, 10 seconds are enough. In a few moments, on the other hand, there is a reading of the heart rate.
Obstacles to overcome
In addition to what X-Tap can do “standard” with the Huawei software, it is interesting that the fact that The company has opened the use of this sensor also to developers of third parties.
Huawei’s limit in the Westin fact, it is that without an installed base made by millions of western users, there will be no developers interested in creating apps. With Apple Watch or Android Wear we can open the smart lock, check the video cameras, the anti -theft, play and so on. Huawei has many appsbecause he sold more than 180 million smartwatches in 10 years, But many are exclusive to China.
The western App Store is not very attractive in terms of smart functions, with few apps if compared with the world of Android and iOS. The opening of the use of X-Tap can be a further incentive to allow developers to create something new thanks to its characteristics, including support for different pressure levels.
Huawei is also slowly increasing the involvement of the developerswith new applications for games, productivity, trips and airlines that have recently been added its store, called App Gallery.
In China you can, from us not
A more general theme should also be added to the discourse of the apps, because the Chinese version of models such as the new Watch 5, for example, is able to do more things than the one available in the West.
Excluding the fact that Huawei is still working on payments via smartwatch (they will arrive), in China Huawei can use Truesense and the compatible smartwatches for a constant monitoring on the risk of hypertension. The clock records data, reports us when manual interventions are needed (via X-TAP) and is able to obtain data on the pressure without using the “inflatable” sensor that is only on the D2 Watch and the old Watch D.
Watch 5 was in fact used for one Hospital study in collaboration with the University of Shanghai And the goal is to be able to combine the various parameters that can be detected today in algorithms that “digest” and monitor to create risk profiles or alarm signals.
Food the beast: the algorithm eats, grows and learns
A reading, alone, can be not very indicative and perhaps inaccurate. By combining the medium heartbeat, HRV, oxygen in the blood, the variation of the skin temperature, stress, and also adding ECG, rigidity of the arteries, acoustic analysis of coughing and night apneas, here you can reach a higher level of understanding.
Not all these functions are still at a medical level: arrhythmia, rigidity of the arteries and analysis of the breath must in fact improve in precision, but it will be interesting to see what the algorithms that will train on the data of hundreds of thousands of users who every day wear these smartwatch will be able to do.
It is a “beast” that nourishes themselves: more people use the clock to trace health, the more the anonymized data are strengthening the algorithm which is then supported also by clinical trials and medical/university studies.
Technology to prevent
In short, we have reached the point where technology, hardware and sensors, is matured enough to start pushing on the software. The level of precision is now excellent, and the next step is to create a “virtual doctor” who does not recommend drugs or recipes, but is able to understand in advance when something is wrong And suggest that you check with our doctor.
Are we there today? Not entirely, not as we would like, not as in the “futuristic dream”.
But We are getting thereand in the meantime we still have the possibility of put a portable laboratory on the wrist which can start Create our clinical history To be shown to the doctor to the next visit
control, while the clock reports keep an eye on us and report that, perhaps, this week oxygen in the blood has fallen compared to the usual, or that the beats are showing something anomalous …
