What You Should Know:

–             With smart ring market leadership within its sights, Ultrahuman has today announced plans to open a manufacturing facility poised to accelerate its production capacity. 

–              The UltraFactory will be located in Indiana. It opens within the next six months and will be the launchpad for Ultrahuman’s next phase of growth.

Ultrahuman Sets Industry Benchmark with Launch of UltraFactory: A Game-Changer in Smart Ring Manufacturing

Ultrahuman, on the heels of a $35 million fresh investment in the company (series B funding round), is set to solidify its position in the smart ring market with the launch of its UltraFactory. This facility, based on the company’s first operational model in India, will offer end-to-end production capabilities, reflecting Ultrahuman’s ambition to lead the market within the next 12 to 15 months.

With phenomenal growth already witnessed, making Ultrahuman the second-largest player in the smart ring market while remaining profitable, the opening of UltraFactory will add significant production capacity. This will enable the production of 200,000 smart rings annually, presenting an additional $100 million revenue opportunity. The move aims to establish market leadership in the US, a market of growing importance for Ultrahuman.

Unique in its ability to make substantial long-term manufacturing investments, Ultrahuman’s profitability supports its commitment to innovation and rapid global expansion. UltraFactory’s cutting-edge capabilities align with the company’s core advantage: fast product development and global rollout.

Beyond enhancing manufacturing capabilities, the move also aligns with the US government’s push for domestic manufacturing. By establishing production in the US, Ultrahuman aims to lower shipping costs and logistics expenses. Additionally, it plans to hire 150 new employees in the US over the next year, with a focus on engineering, research, and commercial operations.

This expansion supports Ultrahuman’s recent retail endeavors, which include presence in over 150 outlets worldwide, such as London’s Selfridges, Changi Airport in Singapore, and the Virgin megastore in Dubai. Their product suite encompasses not only smart rings but also a continuous glucose monitoring wearable, a home health device, and a preventive blood testing product, all integrated into a comprehensive health monitoring platform.

Looking ahead, Ultrahuman anticipates surpassing $100 million in annualized revenue run rate (ARR) by the end of 2024, marking a profitable milestone in its growth trajectory.

Mohit Kumar, Founder and CEO of Ultrahuman commented: “US is an interesting market for us given it has always been huge in terms of demand for the product but we’re also seeing tremendous value from a manufacturing and research perspective. UltraFactory US would enable manufacturing for health tracking smart ring devices and give us the ability to do necessary research to evolve the form factor further.”

What You Should Know:

– Ultrahuman, a pioneer in wearable health technology raises $35M in Series B funding led by prominent like Blume Ventures and Steadview Capital.

– Ultrahuman is set to achieve a significant milestone by the end of 2024 – surpassing $100M in annualized revenue run rate (ARR) while remaining profitable.

Building a Multi-Device Health Ecosystem

Ultrahuman: A Multi-Device Ecosystem for Holistic Health

Ultrahuman stands out as a leader in the health-tech revolution. Their product suite goes beyond just the flagship Ring Air smart ring. It encompasses a comprehensive health ecosystem, including:

• M1 Live: A continuous glucose monitoring wearable.
• Ultrahuman Home: A home health device.
• Blood Vision: A preventive blood testing product.

By seamlessly integrating data from glucose, sleep, movement, blood markers, and heart rate variability (HRV), Ultrahuman fosters a holistic approach to preventative health and personalized wellness.

Funding Fuels Growth and Innovation

The influx of capital will be strategically deployed to:

• Expand Manufacturing Capacity: Ultrahuman plans to bolster its production capabilities to meet the growing demand for their innovative wearables.
• Deepen Research and Development: Investments in R&D will fuel advancements in health tracking technology and solidify Ultrahuman’s position at the forefront of health tech innovation.

Availability

Ultrahuman products are now available in over 150 retail outlets worldwide, including prestigious locations like London’s Selfridges and Singapore’s Changi Airport

“This funding round marks a pivotal step forward in our journey to dominate the smart rings space, bringing us closer to our goal of being the market leader” remarked Mohit Kumar, co-founder of Ultrahuman.

“Our growth is a testament to the user love for our products, highlighted by industry-leading NPS and engagement metrics since the launch of our latest model, the Ring Air. Our relentless focus on improving user experience through continuous firmware and software updates is what sets us apart,” Mohit Kumar emphasized. “Shipping a new firmware version every 2 weeks and weekly app improvements reflect our commitment to excellence and our speed of execution, our biggest competitive advantage. We’ve also iterated in hardware at the speed of software by designing novel devices like Ultrahuman Home, a home health monitor.”

What You Should Know:

– CrisisGo, a leading provider of safety solutions, announced a strategic collaboration with Samsung Electronics America to launch an industry-first smartwatch panic solution.

– This innovative partnership equips Samsung smartwatches with a powerful 2-way emergency communication application, revolutionizing safety for organizations like schools, healthcare facilities, and businesses.

Unveiling a Comprehensive Safety Package

This first-of-its-kind solution offers a comprehensive safety package featuring:

– Samsung smartwatches: The solution utilizes sophisticated and robust Samsung smartwatches, like the Galaxy Watch 6, designed for on-the-go safety and communication.

– Pre-configured CrisisGo app: Seamlessly integrated with the watches, the CrisisGo app empowers users to discreetly trigger panic alerts, receive critical updates, and communicate directly with safety teams.

– Unparalleled connectivity: 4G/LTE, Wifi, and precise indoor location services ensure uninterrupted communication and pinpoint accuracy during emergencies.

– Simplified deployment: Knox Configure for Wearables (WKC) streamlines device enrollment and configuration, offering customization and automation for a smooth setup.

Ideal for Schools and Healthcare

This innovative solution caters perfectly to schools and healthcare facilities, where swift and coordinated emergency responses are crucial. The combined power of Samsung’s technology and CrisisGo’s advanced features creates a powerful tool to protect staff, students, and patients.

What You Should Know:

– Samsung’s Galaxy Watch has received De Novo authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its sleep apnea detection feature.

– This marks a significant step forward in wearable technology, making it the first of its kind to be approved by the FDA for detecting potential sleep apnea.

Defining Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a common and chronic sleep disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. This can lead to disruptions in oxygen supply, lower sleep quality, and daytime fatigue. Untreated, sleep apnea can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases like heart failure and stroke.

How The Sleep Apnea Feature Works

The sleep apnea feature on the Samsung Galaxy Watch uses built-in sensors to monitor your sleep patterns, including blood oxygen levels. By analyzing this data over a two-night period, the watch can detect signs of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). It’s important to note that this feature does not diagnose sleep apnea and is intended for people over 22 who have not been previously diagnosed. If the feature detects potential signs of OSA, it encourages users to seek professional medical evaluation.This new feature on the Galaxy Watch could help identify potential cases earlier, allowing individuals to seek treatment and potentially improve their overall health.

Availability

The sleep apnea feature will be available on the Galaxy Watch series in the US via the Samsung Health Monitor app in the third quarter of 2024.

What You Should Know:

– TRIPP, the award-winning wellness company, announces its arrival on the highly anticipated Apple Vision Pro, redefining the boundaries of personalized well-being experiences.

– The integration with Apple Vision Pro unlocks TRIPP’s most immersive and visually captivating journey yet, seamlessly blending awe-inspiring worldscapes with users’ surroundings through Apple Vision Pro’s groundbreaking spatial computing capabilities.

Reimagining Wellness with Apple Vision Pro

• Enhanced Visuals: TRIPP’s already mesmerizing worldscapes are now rendered in stunning high resolution, amplifying the immersive effect and transporting users to new realms of wonder.
• Spatial Blending: Apple Vision Pro’s unique capabilities seamlessly integrate TRIPP’s content with the user’s physical environment, blurring the lines between reality and digital worlds.
• Personalized Journeys: This innovative technology allows for even more tailored experiences, with elements adapting to the user’s surroundings and preferences.

Beyond Visualization: A Holistic Approach to Well-being

TRIPP’s success goes beyond stunning visuals. It combines:

• Awe-inspiring worldscapes: Designed to evoke feelings of wonder and tranquility.
• Binaural sound frequencies: Precisely crafted soundscapes enhance immersion and guide the user’s experience.
• AI-powered breath detection: Real-time feedback helps users deepen their breathing and manage stress.
• Gamification: Fun and engaging elements motivate users to stay on track with their wellness goals.
• Mindfulness structures: Guided meditations and exercises promote relaxation and focus.

VR Experience Enagement

Unlike many VR experiences, TRIPP’s active users demonstrate remarkable engagement, with 43% returning 2-3 times a week. Additionally, its user base boasts a diverse demographic, with 57% male and 43% female users worldwide, showcasing its ability to cater to various needs and preferences.

“Bringing TRIPP to Apple Vision Pro exemplifies our dedication to pioneering cutting-edge technology for next-generation wellness solutions,” said Nanea Reeves, Founder and CEO at TRIPP. “With Apple Vision Pro, users will not only see a major visual upgrade across all our immersive worldscapes, but it will set the stage for a whole new generation of TRIPP.”

What You Should Know:

A new study led by researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of California San Francisco suggests a surprising link between depression and body temperature. Published today in Scientific Reports, the findings reveal that individuals with depression tend to have higher body temperatures, opening up potential avenues for novel treatment approaches.

Higher Temperatures, More Symptoms

The study, involving over 20,000 participants worldwide, utilized data from a wearable device, the Oura Ring, which measures skin temperature. Participants also self-reported their body temperatures and depressive symptoms daily for seven months.

The analysis revealed a clear correlation: higher levels of depression symptoms were associated with progressively higher skin temperatures. Additionally, the study observed a link between less temperature fluctuation throughout the day and increased depression scores, although this association wasn’t statistically significant.

Exploring Treatment Possibilities

These findings, while not directly establishing a causal link, suggest a potential treatment avenue for depression. Existing research indicates that heat-based therapies like saunas or hot tubs might alleviate depression symptoms, possibly by triggering the body’s natural cooling mechanisms.

“What if we could track the body temperature of individuals with depression and use that information to strategically apply heat-based treatments, leading to a longer-lasting cooling effect?” ponders lead author Ashley Mason, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF and a clinical psychologist.

Future Directions and Collaborations

This research builds upon the ongoing TemPredict Study, aiming to leverage skin temperature data for various health insights. The collaboration between UC San Diego and UC San Francisco researchers signifies the growing interest in exploring temperature’s role in mental health.

“To our knowledge, this is the largest study to date to examine the association between body temperature, assessed using both self-report methods and wearable sensors, and depressive symptoms in a geographically broad sample,” said Ashley Mason, associate professor of psychiatry at UC San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the study’s lead author. “Given the climbing rates of depression in the U.S., we’re excited by the possibilities of a new avenue for treatment.”

This research effort is sponsored by the Government under Solicitation MTEC-20-12-Diagnostics-023.

What You Should Know:

– Fitbit, the leader in wearable technology, and Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), a provider of diagnostic information services, announced the launch of the Wearables for Metabolic Health (WEAR-ME) pilot study.

– This pilot study will explore the potential of wearable devices to revolutionize how we assess and manage metabolic health, a key factor in preventing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Beyond Steps: Wearables for Deeper Insights

While wearables have become our ubiquitous companions, tracking steps and sleep, their true potential lies in their ability to shed light on our internal health. WEAR-ME aims to bridge the gap between activity data and actionable health insights. By pairing Fitbit’s rich collection of biometric data with the clinical precision of Quest Diagnostics’ laboratory tests, the study will explore how these combined forces can inform a more holistic picture of metabolic health.

Data-Driven Prevention

Metabolic health, encompassing factors like blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides, plays a crucial role in disease risk. Poor metabolic health paves the way for conditions like diabetes and heart disease, affecting millions worldwide. WEAR-ME seeks to break this cycle by studying the impact of wearables on user behavior, as assessed through objective lab results. Can wearables motivate us to make healthier choices that positively impact our metabolic markers? This study will delve into this critical question.

“This collaboration aligns perfectly with our mission to empower individuals to take control of their health,” says Richard Adams, Vice President and General Manager of Consumer-Initiated Testing at Quest. “By combining Fitbit’s user-friendly technology with Quest’s diagnostic expertise, we can provide people with accessible tools to understand and improve their metabolic health.”

Joining the WEAR-ME Journey

The study invites 1,500 existing Fitbit users to participate, offering them a unique opportunity to gain deeper insights into their health. Participants will share three months of Fitbit data and receive at-no-cost blood tests to assess their metabolic health profile. Armed with this personalized data, they can embark on a journey towards positive lifestyle changes, guided by the combined expertise of Fitbit and Quest.

The WEAR-ME pilot study is expected to be completed in 2024, with the findings paving the way for future research and the development of innovative strategies for managing metabolic health and preventing chronic diseases. This collaboration between Fitbit and Quest Diagnostics holds immense promise for transforming the future of healthcare, putting the power of personalized data and insights in the hands of individuals and their healthcare providers.

What You Should Know:

• Epicore Biosystems  a digital health solutions company developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables to provide real-time personalized hydration insights for performance and safety, today announced that it has received investment from Pegasus Tech Ventures, a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, and Denka Company Limited, a Japan-based multinational technology and materials company.
• The new investment is the first of a larger series and will be used to support the scale and distribution of Epicore’s wearable solutions within Japan and in the broader Asia market. 

Revolutionizing Hydration Management

Asia is facing unprecedented heat waves, shattering temperature records across the continent. Despite the rise in extreme heat events and the introduction of wearable technologies, digital solutions for monitoring and managing hydration remain underutilized in Asia. In response, Epicore, backed by investments from Pegasus and Denka, plans to expand its Connected Hydration solution in Japan and Asia. This innovative biosensor and enterprise cloud system measures sweat loss, sodium levels, skin temperature, and movement in real-time, providing personalized rehydration strategies.

Epicore’s recent investments coincide with successful deployments in various Japanese industries, revealing significant sweat and electrolyte losses in both indoor and outdoor settings. The Connected Hydration system offers features like real-time alerts, hydration feedback, and predictive analytics through a mobile app and an enterprise cloud engine. This technology addresses the growing global demand for hydration management solutions, particularly in Asia, Australia, and the Middle East, following the extreme heat waves of 2023. Epicore, with key partnerships globally, including Chevron, PepsiCo, Gatorade, and the U.S. Army, plans to launch its Connected Hydration patch, mobile app, and cloud engine for commercial use in early 2024.

“Health risks and injuries associated with extreme heat are pervasive in Japan and across the broader Asia population,” said Nobuyuki Yoshino, managing executive officer at Denka. “Epicore’s wearable technology is positioned to improve our understanding of hydration and health needs for people at home and in industrial work settings. We are excited to collaborate with Epicore to help scale Connected Hydration and its portfolio of innovations and products.”

What You Should Know:

– Samsung Electronics is pushing the boundaries of preventive healthcare with the expansion of its Privileged Health Software Development Kit (SDK) program.

– This SDK expansion unlocks the Galaxy Watch’s cutting-edge sensor technology for developers, fostering partnerships that bring a wave of innovative health solutions to users.

Empowering Users with Personalized Health Insights

At the heart of this program lies user empowerment. By integrating Galaxy Watch data with diverse platforms, Samsung and its partners empower individuals to actively manage their health. From real-time vital sign monitoring to personalized sleep environments, the focus is on proactive well-being.

Remote Patient Monitoring: Bridging the Distance

The Galaxy Watch becomes a bridge between patients and their healthcare providers, enabling seamless remote monitoring. Partners like Biofourmis and Kencor Health leverage the watch’s biometric data to deliver personalized care and predict potential health issues, allowing for timely interventions and improved clinical management.

Heart Health and Beyond: AI-powered Insights for Everyone

Medical AI’s advanced ECG services, powered by the Galaxy Watch’s technology, provide real-time arrhythmia detection and proactive alerts for patients with heart conditions. Oova, an AI-powered women’s health platform, integrates menstrual cycle data with Galaxy Watch biometrics, offering personalized guidance and precise fertility predictions.

XR Therapy at Home: Immersive Wellness Within Reach

Samsung’s partnership with XRHealth brings extended reality (XR) therapy to the comfort of home. By monitoring heart rate during virtual exercise sessions, the Galaxy Watch acts as a real-time pacer, providing valuable feedback for personalized physical and mental health therapy. Healium’s bio-feedback platform utilizes Galaxy Watch data to create immersive visual experiences, helping users understand and manage stress levels through intuitive visual feedback.

Personalized Sleep: A Holistic Approach to Rest

Recognizing the importance of sleep for overall health, Samsung is expanding its sleep technology beyond the Galaxy Watch. Partnerships with smart mattress companies like 3Boon1 create personalized sleep environments that optimize temperature for uninterrupted rest. By combining Galaxy Watch data with the mattress’s AI algorithm, users can achieve optimal sleep conditions, tailored to their individual needs.

What You Should Know:

– Withings, the pioneer of hybrid smartwatches, unveils its latest innovation: ScanWatch Nova.

– This timepiece seamlessly blends cutting-edge health-tracking technology with exquisite diver-style aesthetics, making it the perfect companion for health-conscious individuals who appreciate luxury.

A Powerful Health Scan on Your Wrist

ScanWatch Nova boasts an array of health-focused features, including:

• On-demand medical-grade ECG: Monitor your heart rhythm for potential anomalies like atrial fibrillation with a 30-second recording.
• 24/7 body temperature tracking: Gain insights into potential illnesses and optimize workout recovery through continuous temperature variation monitoring.
• Blood oxygen (SpO2) measurement: Assess your respiratory system’s health and gain valuable data during workouts.
• In-depth sleep analysis: Track sleep phases, duration, interruptions, and receive personalized advice for improvement.
• Advanced activity tracking: Monitor steps, calories, elevation, routes, and automatically recognize over 40 activities.

Luxury Design Meets Cutting-Edge Technology

The ScanWatch Nova is more than just a health tracker; it’s a statement piece. Its exquisite design features include:

• Ceramic and stainless-steel rotating bezel: Inspired by classic diver watches, with clear markings and Luminova hands and indices for low-light visibility.
• Refined sunray dial and mirror-polished stainless-steel case: Elegance meets durability in this exquisite watch.
• 10 ATM water resistance and sapphire glass: Built to withstand the elements and everyday wear.
• User-friendly OLED display: Clear and customizable, displaying vital health metrics and notifications.

A Seamless Health Journey with the Withings App

The ScanWatch Nova pairs flawlessly with the Withings app, offering:

• Intuitive interface: Easily customize your watch display, set notifications, and track trends.
• Personalized insights and recommendations: Gain actionable guidance to optimize your health journey.
• Long press and quick look options: Launch your preferred feature or activate the display with a simple wrist movement.

Availability and Pricing

The ScanWatch Nova is available for pre-order online at Withings.com starting December 5th, 2023, for $599.95. It comes in blue, green, and black, with both oyster and FKM wristbands included. Retail partners will begin carrying the watch in February 2024.

With the ScanWatch Nova, Withings has redefined the health tracker. It’s a powerful health monitor, a luxurious timepiece, and a testament to cutting-edge technology, all beautifully wrapped in one.

What You Should Know:

– Ambiq®, a provider of ultra-low-power semiconductors for IoT endpoints, has announced a new collaboration with Xiaomi, a global provider in consumer electronics and smart manufacturing, to develop the Xiaomi Smart Band 8.

– This new smart band is designed to help consumers define their unique style while providing them with a wide range of health and fitness features.

Xiaomi Smart Band 8: A Reimagined Wearable Experience

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 marks a significant leap forward in wearable technology, offering a comprehensive suite of features and functionalities that redefine the smart band category. Powered by Ambiq’s Apollo4 Blue Lite SoC, the Smart Band 8 delivers exceptional performance while maintaining remarkable power efficiency, enabling users to enjoy a seamless and extended experience.

Advanced Health and Wellness Monitoring

The Smart Band 8 is equipped with a range of health and wellness monitoring capabilities, including:

– Continuous SpO2 and heart rate monitoring: Keep track of your oxygen saturation levels and heart rate throughout the day to stay informed about your overall health and well-being.

– Comprehensive sleep monitoring: Gain valuable insights into your sleep patterns, including sleep stages and sleep quality, to optimize your rest and improve your daytime performance.

– Pressure monitoring: Monitor your blood pressure levels regularly to proactively manage your cardiovascular health.

– Female menstrual cycle tracking: Stay informed about your menstrual cycle and receive personalized predictions for your period and ovulation days.

Enhanced User Experience

The Smart Band 8 boasts an array of features that enhance the user experience:

– 200+ pre-set watch faces: Customize your band to match your style with a wide selection of watch faces.

– 1.62″ crystal clear high-resolution AMOLED display: Enjoy vibrant colors and sharp text on a larger, improved display.

– 190mAh battery: Experience up to 16 days of typical usage on a single charge, ensuring that your band stays powered up throughout your day.

– 150+ sports modes: Choose from a wide range of sports modes to track your workouts and achieve your fitness goals.

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 is now available for purchase. For more information, please visit the Xiaomi website.

What You Should Know:

• Following the success of the groundbreaking Circular Ring Pro, Circular, pioneers of smart ring technology, is excited to unveil the Circular Ring Slim, the thinnest, and lightest, most intuitive smart ring in the world and the first to incorporate haptic navigation and alerts.
• Paired with Kira+, Circular’s powerful AI wellness assistant, the sleek Circular Ring Slim assesses 7 biometrics and 142 derived markers 24/7 to help people sleep better and live healthier lives. By optimizing physical activities and maintaining mental wellness it is making personalized, preventative health a reality. 

Circular Ring Slim – Miniature but Mighty

 Circular is innovating the next wave of remote monitoring solutions, seamlessly integrated into highly wearable smart rings for both consumers and health professionals. The Circular Ring Slim, the company’s second iteration, succeeds the Circular Ring Pro, embodying constant use for a comprehensive health circle.Weighing a mere 2 grams and measuring 2.2 mm thick, the Circular Ring Slim claims the title of the world’s slimmest and lightest wearable. It boasts advanced sensors, a 6-day battery life, and 20 days of memory, ensuring continuous day-and-night wear. The ring gathers health data every 2 minutes, providing 15 times more information than competitors.

This ultra-thin design, crafted from matte black titanium, combines comfort with style. It captures various health metrics, including activity levels, blood oxygen, energy, calories, heart and respiration rates, and chronotype during the day. At night, it monitors circadian rhythm, sleep quality, disturbances, REM cycles, and temperature variations for early illness detection. Distinctively, the Circular Ring Slim introduces haptic navigation and feedback. Users tap inputs around the ring, and haptic vibrations offer feedback and drive features like the Smart Alarm Clock, Medication Reminders, and Guided Breathing Exercises.

Augmenting the ring’s capabilities is Kira+, an AI-powered health assistant, providing personalized insights and recommendations without subscription fees. Kira+ analyzes data over a 14-day period, understanding user habits to deliver tailored health advice, predict potential issues, and offer motivation through gamification strategies within the Circular app.

Circular’s app is compatible with popular health platforms like Google Fit and Apple HealthKit, ensuring seamless integration with other health apps.

What You Should Know:

•  STAT Health emerges from stealth to introduce a 24/7 in-ear wearable that measures blood flow to the head to better understand symptoms such as dizziness, brain fog, headaches, fainting, and fatigue that occur upon standing.
• These are common symptoms for illnesses like long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and other orthostatic (caused by standing) syndromes that affect more than 13 million Americans. Clinically tested at Johns Hopkins and peer-reviewed in the March 2023 issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), the device has been shown to predict fainting minutes before it happens.

Blood Flow to the Head is What Matters; The Ear as a Biometric Gold Mine

Numerous individuals grappling with conditions such as long COVID, POTS, and ME/CFS experience symptoms resulting from diminished blood flow to the brain upon assuming an upright position. Despite being theoretically recognized, substantiating this phenomenon experimentally has proven challenging until recently. Physicians affiliated with Johns Hopkins, Brigham and Women’s, and Harvard Medical School have successfully utilized ultrasound to validate that Cerebral Blood Flow (measured through ultrasound in cerebral arteries as a means of quantifying blood flow to the head) serves as a pivotal biomarker. This objective measure effectively gauges the existence and intensity of various “invisible illnesses.”

“Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) is the critical missing vital sign – poor CBF is the cause of common orthostatic symptoms such as dizziness and brain fog. My Dutch colleagues have measured this with ultrasound on over a thousand patients.” said Peter Rowe, M.D., Sunshine Natural Wellbeing Foundation Professor of Chronic Fatigue and Related Disorders, Johns Hopkins Medicine. “However, it’s not easy to measure CBF, so most clinics approximate using secondary metrics of Heart Rate and Blood Pressure, which often mislead. Unfortunately, this frequently leads to the wrong conclusion that the symptoms are just psychological, when in fact, there are physiological abnormalities.”

To fit into a wearable form factor, STAT uses an optical sensor instead of ultrasound and taps into a shallow ear artery to measure a proxy to ultrasound-derived Cerebral Blood Flow. 

What You Should Know:

– Vida Health, a virtual cardiometabolic care provider and wearables provider Withings Health Solutions has partnered to provide Vida members with state-of-the-art remote monitoring devices, including the Withings Body Pro cellular scale and the BPM Connect Pro cellular blood pressure monitor.

– Eligible Vida members will receive Withings Body Pro cellular scales, BPM Connect Pro cellular blood pressure monitors, or both. Vida’s care teams will gain access to consistent and accurate patient-generated health data, improving their personalized care approach.

Elevate Patients’ User Experience and Improve Vida’s Operational Capabilities

The collaboration aims to enhance the patient experience by providing Vida members access to high-quality monitoring devices, facilitating meaningful discussions with healthcare providers, and establishing actionable health goals. By integrating Withings’ cellular scale and blood pressure monitor, Vida not only enhances the user experience but also streamlines its operations, leveraging reliable data and achieving operational efficiency.

“Patient experience is frequently marginalized as a “nice to have” within the healthcare industry. Yet, with Vida​,​ we share the belief that it actually is a “must-have​.​” Great experiences not only foster​     ​ patient engagement but also lead to better health outcomes,” said Antoine Robiliard, VP of Withings Health Solutions. “Our cellular devices ensure that Vida’s care teams​ continuously​receive​ accurate and reliable measurements to make more informed and timely decisions. With a joint focus on enhancing the patient experience, we aim to drive consistent program engagement while reducing the long-term costs of living with and managing a chronic condition.” 

Vida Health Background

Vida’s virtual cardiometabolic care solutions serve clients across the United States, offering proven clinical outcomes for various conditions such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and more.

Withing Health Solutions Background

Withings Health Solutions focuses on delivering powerful health devices that can be seamlessly integrated into third-party ecosystems, catering to medical professionals, institutions, and remote patient monitoring programs.

What You Should Know: 

– Evidation has been awarded a contract by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to fund the 2023 Influenza-like Illness (ILI) Detect & Protect Studies.

– This contract will also fund research to expand and better understand the potential impact of Evidation’s FluSmart program to encourage protective health behaviors. FluSmart pairs machine learning predictions with behavioral nudges, education, and personalized insights to help people better understand their risk of flu-like illness and take early action to help prevent transmission and severe disease.

Detect & Protect Studies

The Detect & Protect Studies will support the development of machine learning models to detect respiratory viral infections with data collected from consumer-grade wearable devices. This research will take place during the 2023-24 cold and flu season and bring together new devices and data types, serial PCR testing, and Evidation’s health measurement and engagement platform to create next-generation models for earlier and pre-symptomatic detection of COVID-19, influenza A and B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The expanded partnership is the third BARDA award issued to Evidation to advance understanding and detection tools for respiratory infections. The first award funded the Home Testing of Respiratory Illness Study, a prospective flu monitoring study and benchmark dataset that used consumer wearables, self-reported symptoms, and PCR testing to understand and characterize respiratory virus onset. 

“Since our first study with BARDA in December of 2019, with the participation and consent of hundreds of thousands of Americans nationwide, we’ve learned how high-resolution data from consumer grade wearables–heart rate, sleep, physical activity and other more specific signals–can help identify when someone may be experiencing symptoms of flu-like illness,” said Christine Lemke, co-founder and CEO of Evidation. “We are excited to expand, validate, and improve our models, and find new ways to prompt people to take appropriate action when it matters most.”