health

The Apple Watch is now seen as one of the most popular watch brands in the world, beating the likes of Rolex.  This was no easy feat for a product that is only six years old.  With improvement in technology, excellent marketing and a strong phone brand to complement the watch, it’s easy to see how it happened.  And it is with these two products that Apple has found its way into the connected health sector.  Again, standing back and looking at it, I can see how it happened.  Today, the two things that are physically close to use at all times are our watch and our phone.  They sometimes physically feel, hear and see what we see.  Therefore, they are the best placed tools to monitor our health.

With the majority of parents wanting their children to be healthier (84%) and want their families to be more active (87%), Fitbit has introduced the Fitbit Ace.  The Ace, according to Fitbit is an activity tracker that makes fitness fun for kids while inspiring the entire family to build healthy habits together. Designed for kids ages 8 and older; Ace automatically tracks steps; active minutes and sleep; has up to 5 days of battery life; it features an adjustable showerproof wristband in two colours. It offers 10 unique clock faces and two fun interchangeable bands in electric blue and power purple, kids can find the style that fits their unique personality and be motivated to wear Ace day and night, no matter what they are doing.

Do you have a Garmin vivosmart3, Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro or a Samsung Gear Sport? UnitedHealthCare is allowing some of its customers to save on health insurance, as part of its UnitedHealthcare Motion wellness program. According to UnitedHealthCare, participants have collectively tracked themselves making 130 billion steps, and earning more than $19 million in incentives since the program launched in 2016.

Orbita has unveiled the healthcare industry’s first HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based solution designed specifically to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of connected home healthcare. Organizations using the Orbita platform can easily create, manage and deliver practical digital home healthcare applications that improve medical outcomes and reduce health care costs for individuals with chronic and post-acute care needs.

Nokia Technologies, an offspring of Nokia, has has made its first step into the connected health market with Samsung, Apple and Microsoft by acquiring Withings of France.  Withings offers a family of award-winning digital health products and services to help people lead healthier lives. Its connected health product range includes regulated and unregulated products such as activity trackers, weighing scales, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, home and baby monitors.

Indiegogo has a campaign running for a new gym kit that connects to your mobile Apple or Android and allows you to track your training and fitness.  The MOVE IT smart gym kit offers four key workouts for your abdominals and core, skipping, push-ups and  resistance. The MOVE IT gym kit, allows you to turn any 3mx3m space in your home into a gym.

Former Professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Kevin Warwick is quoted in the ES magazine as saying “If we can clear the social hurdles, within a decade many [of us] will be experimenting with implanted chips to do everything from skipping airport security using a passport ID in their hand, to monitoring blood preasure, temperature or sugar, all of which have huge health benefits for emergency services.”  He predicted that “by 2040, we might have cranial implants, which you could purchase to communicate by basic thought.” This paints a vivid picture of what this could mean fo

In order to improve care providers patients relationship management Philips is expanding its HealthSuite platform in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS).  The new AWS IoT platform will make it easy for devices to connect to AWS services, which will expand the connectivity, capabilities and services of Philips' HealthSuite digital platform.

At the recent IFA in Berlin Panasonic showcased a host of connected lifestyle solutions under the slogan ‘A Better Life, A Better World’. The product and services on display were focused on the themes family gathering, relaxation, of food preparation, and beauty and health. They can be placed the different rooms in our homes to enhance the activity or experience of the environment. Panasonic said they want to create a connected lifestyle we all desire that is technically possible within the next five years.

The connected life style should have a market potential of US $731 billion by 2020, this is according to Frost and Sullivan.  This figure includes revenue from all sectors that touches the connected home.  Cloud computing, mobility, low cost sensors, big data are driving the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected industries.