As consumers consider lifestyle changes following the COVID-19 outbreak, they have prioritized monitoring and augmenting their health to pursue a healthier lifestyle. As a result, the wearable healthcare devices market is growing significantly, from an expected USD 27.29 billion by 2022 to an anticipated USD 324.65 billion by 20321. Improved reliability and speed of 5G and higher networks, coupled review film with the development of new technology, are driving this growth. In addition, unique healthcare needs and design forms have enabled emerging markets to meet consumer demand for new opportunities in this space. This post reviews three major healthcare wearable device types to help consumers improve monitoring and overall health and safety.

Rings for Preventative Care and Sleep Monitoring
Smartwatches have been the standard for wearable health monitoring; Fitbit has become synonymous with health monitoring watches, with products from Apple, Samsung, and Google providing excellent, readily available alternatives. But a fundamental problem with the wrist as a biomedical monitoring point is the relative weakness of the signal strength. Early watches collected massive amounts of data and regressed trends, but with suspect accuracy; this approach rendered the data useless to medical professionals.

Compared to the wrist, the biomedical signals in the fingers are up to ten times stronger2. In an effort to better detect and measure the user’s vital health metrics, designers developed wearable smart rings that use the fingers as the biomedical monitoring point. The ring includes highly-sensitive temperature sensors, accelerometers, infrared LEDs, and gyroscopes to provide measurement accuracy at the level of professional medical equipment.

Rings are much more comfortable for the user to wear during sleep and provide real-time measurements for heart rate (and changes), sleep cycles, body temperature, physical activity levels, and respiration. The accuracy of the electronic components is critical, delivering more accurate data with significantly reduced computational load due to precise local measurements.

Emergency Bracelets and Pendants
While many healthcare wearables intend to integrate into daily life transparently, healthcare pendants are an emerging device helpful for seniors in sudden, life-threatening situations. They can provide 24-hour monitoring, GPS location tracking, and detect a fall event. In addition, some devices have bi-directional communication capability with family or emergency personnel via 5G cellular networks or Wi-Fi®.