The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 will soon get a blood pressure monitoring feature. The South Korean company has announced that its Samsung Health Monitor app has been approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) as a Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) to measure blood pressure, making it a government-certified cuffless blood pressure monitoring application.
However, you still need to calibrate the initial measurement with a traditional blood pressure monitor. You can then measure your blood pressure anytime, anywhere directly through the watch.
The advanced heart rate sensors on Samsung smartwatches measure blood pressure through pulse wave analysis. The app measures the relationship between the calibrated value and the blood pressure change to determine your blood pressure.
The accompanying smartphone app further lets users track and compare blood pressure values for longer time periods. Samsung recommends repeating the calibration process once a month to ensure accuracy.
Samsung Health Monitor – a blood pressure monitoring app for smartwatches
The Galaxy Watch Active 2 is the most feature-packed Samsung smartwatch yet. It offers tons of health-related features such as ECG, female health-tracking, heart rate monitoring, and sleep tracking. The company is now adding one more critical feature to its repertoire.
High blood pressure significantly increases the risk of brain, kidney, and heart diseases. If not managed properly, high blood pressure can lead to stroke and coronary heart disease.
Samsung is now giving its smartwatch users the ability to track their blood pressure directly from their watch, giving them greater insight into their health.
“The Samsung Health Monitor app has the potential to help millions of people around the world who are affected by high blood pressure,” said Taejong Jay Yang, SVP at Samsung. “This is one of many examples of how Samsung is integrating its best-in-class hardware with the latest software innovations to innovate mobile experiences.”
The new Samsung Health Monitor app is still in development. Samsung expects to make it available for the Galaxy Watch Active 2 by the end of the third quarter this year.
It will also be available for the upcoming crop Galaxy Watch devices. It’s unclear if any of Samsung’s older Galaxy smartwatches will get this feature.
Also, this app has only got approval from the South Korean health ministry so far. It will need approval from local government health authorities in other countries as well before Samsung can rollout this feature elsewhere.
So it could take several months for the Samsung Health Monitor app to be available globally.