Omron Healthcare’s Project Zero produced an idea for a wrist-worn blood pressure monitor and activity tracker called HeartGuide, and the near-final version of it is being shown off at CES 2018. The wearable represents the physical part of a full-on personal health ecosystem and is centered around blood pressure monitoring. Alongside the wearable, Omron is showing an updated version of the Omron Connect app, which will act as a companion app to the HealthGuide once it’s released. The new app will be out February 1st. The wearable, however, did not have a release date announced, nor did Omron Healthcare inform the public about its pricing or specs at this time. This information is reportedly pending approval of the wearable by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
The idea behind the Omron HeartGuide is to miniaturize blood pressure monitoring to not only be doable in the space of a normal smartwatch but to also pack in a wide range of normal smartwatch functions and health monitoring beyond blood pressure tracking. To accomplish this, the company has filed around 50 patents thus far pertaining to unique variants of normal blood pressure monitoring equipment, including miniaturized versions. The newest version of the Omron Connect app will also play an integral role in the wearable’s functionality; using the app, you can monitor health data in an easy-to-navigate graph format, and you can keep as much monitoring data as you please. You can also share it with doctors and other healthcare professionals from right within the app. The newest version of the Omron Connect app will work with all contemporary Omron-made health equipment, the company said.
Omron Healthcare is working hard to establish itself in the wearable space and the digital health segment, but the company is not without serious competition on many fronts. More casual offerings like Samsung’s S Health and Google Fit may lure the mainstream audience, i.e. consumers who don’t want to buy dedicated monitoring equipment, and products like the QardioArm will be directly competing with Omron’s offering, though their feature sets are going to be a little different, much like the design principles behind them