On Thursday March 25, the U.S. Patent Office published a Samsung patent application worth noting. While Samsung had been in the health industry for years supplying hospitals with diagnostic scanners and more, they only recently entered the consumer market after the Apple Watch had gained success by offering health features. Last week a Samsung patent application covered the addition of advanced biometric sensors to a future Galaxy Fold device for measuring blood pressure and more.  

Galaxy Fold: Advanced Biometrics

Cuffless blood pressure measurement methods generally include a method of estimating blood pressure by calculating a Pulse Transit Time (PTT), and a Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA) method of estimating blood pressure by analyzing a pulse wave shape.

Samsung's invention allows for a future Galaxy Fold smartphone to be equipped with several specialty sensors that collect bio-information such as blood pressure, vascular age, arterial stiffness, aortic pressure waveform, vascular compliance, stress index, and fatigue level.

Samsung's patent FIG. 1 below illustrates a Galaxy Fold smartphone which is the target device to be equipped with health sensors outlined above; FIG. 3A illustrates an example of how the the smartphone will estimate bio-information; FIG. 6B is another example of how the smartphone could collect and estimate bio-information where the user is using a two-finger reading.

Samsung's patent FIG. 10 below  is a flowchart illustrating a method of estimating bio-information.

Samsung's patent application 20210089079 is very technical. To review its finer details, click here.