Israel based Healthtech company Facense ltd. has developed a smartglass that can be used to monitor blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation levels, and more.
Facense also makes small integrated biosensors that can be incorporated into glasses, helmets or other head-mounted devices.
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Biosensors and Facense Smartglass
Facense smart glasses include a variety of sensors that assist with continuous monitoring. These sensors include two skin temperature sensors, PPG sensors that assist with oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure, 6 axis IMU that can track head movement, steps, and other activity data and built-in pair of microphones that can detect coughing, breathing, and wheezing while providing a channel to speak with a remote health care professional.
The company is marketing its smart glasses as the next generation solution for continuous physiological monitoring.
Beyond the smart glasses and their embedded sensor tech, Facense also specializes in biometric data analysis.
The company uses advanced artificial intelligence based algorithms to help with root cause detection of medical conditions and effective early intervention processes.
The data collected by the embedded sensors and camera on the Smartglass is passed to the app which does most of the calculations and provides the 24/7 continuous monitoring capabilities.
Blood Sugar and Glucose monitoring via Smartglasses
Facense is a top patent holder when it comes to medical smart glasses. With more than 37 US patents and counting, its technology can be used in detecting signs and symptoms of many medical conditions.
Recently ( Jan 14th, 2021), the company was awarded a new patent that allows its smart glass wearable to monitor blood sugar level.
The technology uses PPG signals and a camera to collect biometric signals that can be processed by its machine learning algorithms to computer blood glucose levels.
The photoplethysmography sensors and the camera are coupled into the smart glasses worn on the user’s head.
Noninvasive measurement of blood sugar and blood pressure via a simple wearable is becoming the need of the hour for wearable health tech.
Large Tech companies and health and wellness monitoring
Recent developments suggest that leading wearable companies such as Apple and Samsung are in the process of incorporating Blood sugar monitoring into their smartwatches.
These companies are also in the process of developing their own smartglasses based products.
- Samsung SmartGlasses could help with medication reminders and other health information
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Apple Watch S 7 may feature noninvasive blood glucose monitoring
It is unclear at this point if the smart glasses from Apple or Samsung are going to include any health monitoring aspects.
During Apple’s investor call following the release of Q1, 2021 results, Tim Cook mentioned that the company is always looking for new ideas to bring to the market which has hardware, software, and the services element.
It would not be surprising to see a new Health+ subscription service offering from Apple following the success of its recently launched Fitness+ service, provided that the company can introduce some form of blood pressure and blood sugar monitoring with embedded health coaching.
In the meantime, Tech startups such as Facense are already doing some very interesting work when it comes to wearables for health and wellness, beyond the smartwatch and earbuds.
