The Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) is Samsung’s big bet on the future of health and wearables. Yesterday they announced the new platform and a proof-of-concept called the Simband that represent where they think the health industry is headed in the next few years. Samsung wants to collect, aggregate and use huge amounts of data that will come from new sensors built into devices like the Simband.
Samsung’s president Young Sohn laid out the details about the Simband, stating that the device will have sensors not found in current health trackers like Fitbit. The Simband will be able to track and log your heart rate, oxygen levels, glucose levels, and even test air quality in addition to the normal step and calorie counters we’re used to.
All of this info will be fed into SAMI, where Samsung can analyze it and use it to help make your life better. It won’t just be the Simband that has access to SAMI. Any device that has these types of sensors may be able to tap into Samsung’s cloud storage and processing. Developers will be able to access this information and use it to create new and useful apps for us. From Samsung’s Strategy and Innovation Center: “Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) will be a data broker that will enable wearable devices like those based on Simband to upload information to the cloud. From there, developers can access the data and leverage it to create entirely new applications. SAMI will be the first truly secure, open, diverse data platform of its kind.”
Samsung is really focusing on the health and fitness market. Their S Health app is one of the nicer apps that they’ve created. The app launched on the Galaxy S4, and the Galaxy S5 had even more sensors and options to take advantage of that service. Now the company wants to take another step, expanding on their cloud data and trying to gather even more information with the use of all of these new sensors. The applications could be limitless; for consumers, for the medical field, for fitness coaches, even just people that want to know what’s going on with their bodies.