Non-invasive blood glucose monitoring on wearable technology has been in the works for years, with Apple said to have been looking at the technology for its smartwatches in 2017. Eight years later, it hasn’t been achieved, with diabetics still having to use expensive third-party hardware to keep on top of their blood sugar levels.
Apple isn’t the only company said to be looking into the technology, and now it looks like Samsung may beat Apple to the punch. Originally rumored for last year’s Galaxy Watch Ultra, the company has dropped its biggest hint that the long-awaited health-tracking breakthrough is just around the corner.
At the Samsung Health forum in San Jose, the company’s senior vice president Dr. Hon Pak, specifically namechecked the feature as something Samsung’s engineers have been working on, according to Android Authority.
“What I’m really excited about is our team, as you may have assumed, we are working on a noninvasive optically-based continuous glucose monitor,” he’s quoted as saying. “I can’t tell you the time [of the launch], but I’m very excited about the progress we are making, and this, if we do it right, will be a game-changer.”
It’s unusual for a company to be as explicit as this about its work. But it wasn’t an accidental slip of the tongue: just yesterday, Samsung published an editorial from Dr. Pak on its newsroom reiterating the research.
“By combining our long-standing sensor innovations with AI leadership, we aim to elevate our capabilities in preventing diseases, beyond sleep apnea and expanding to cardio-metabolic conditions,” he writes.
“In particular, blood glucose is a big area of focus for us, and Samsung has been working to develop a sensor algorithm that predicts early signs of diabetes — along with non-invasive blood glucose monitoring technology and continuous glucose monitoring-integrated nutrition coaching.”
A game-changer, but when can we expect it?
While Dr. Pak was careful not to raise expectations by mentioning any kind of release date, the fact that Samsung is happy to talk about non-invasive blood glucose monitoring suggests that the company is confident it’s going to work — and soon.
This isn’t something Samsung would discuss in such definitive terms if it was only possible, and that in turn suggests it could be something we see debut this year with the Galaxy Watch 8.
That said, it’s worth referring back to Dr. Pak’s exact words here: “If we do it right, [it] will be a game-changer.” I’ve italicized “do it right” because that’s all important: blood glucose measuring isn’t something to be messed around with, and a poorly implemented solution is actually worse than no solution at all. The last thing you want to do is to lull diabetics into a false sense of security with unreliable measurements.
For that reason, while it’s possible, we’ll see the feature introduced in some form in the Galaxy Watch 8 — perhaps the “sensor algorithm that predicts early signs of diabetes” that Dr. Pak mentioned in the blog post — it wouldn’t be surprising if the holy grail of continuous glucose monitoring slips to the Galaxy Watch 9 or later.
