Apple introduced the Apple Watch series 4 at their WWDC event and available to U.S. customers on December 6th. On Thursday a published Samsung patent shows us that they're hard at work to bring the ECG feature of the Apple Watch 4 to a future version of their Gear Watch. To differentiate it from Apple's version, Samsung discusses adding the ability to take a user's blood pressure.

Samsung notes that their invention will provide a blood pressure measuring apparatus that is small sized to be worn on the wrist and measures blood pressure in consideration of both a pulse transit time (PTT) and an arterial stiffness index (ASI) that are calculated through photo-plethysmograph (PPG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) to more accurately measure blood pressure.

The measuring of the Arterial Stiffness Index (ASI) may include guiding a predetermined wearing posture of a blood pressuring measuring apparatus according to whether an ECG signal is detected.

The sensor may include a PPG sensor, an electrocardiogram sensor, and a pressure sensor. The sensor may detect reference pressure applied to a wrist of a user and fluctuation pressure varied according to cardiac impulse under the reference pressure as pressure of a cell, which is installed on the wearing posture and into which air is injected, to pressurize the cell according to a hand shape.

Samsung's patent FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram a blood pressure measuring apparatus that includes an ECG sensor; FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an example in which a position of a pressure sensor is changed; FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a state in which a blood pressure measuring apparatus is worn on the wrist to measure blood pressure.

ECG Sensor

According to Samsung, the PPG sensor may be a sensor for analyzing a signal obtained by emitting light beams with two or more different wavelengths to a user finger that contacts a first electrocardiogram electrode #33a of the ECG sensor and receiving the light beams. In this case, the PPG sensor #31 may also be used as an oxygen saturation sensor and, in this regard, the oxygen saturation may be mainly used to calculate calorie consumption according to user activity and may also be used to monitor a situation such as labored respiration, clouded consciousness, shock, body condition during exercise, adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that is a lung disease, hypoxia risk detection in an alpine region, gas poisoning, and a choking incident.

The ECG sensor #33 may also be referred to as an electrocardiography (EKG) sensor and may be a sensor for detection of a pattern signal of action current of the heart. The electrocardiogram sensor may be classified into a current electrocardiograph and a voltage electrocardiograph according to a signal detection method.

The electrocardiogram waveform may include P, Q, R, S, and T waves. Thereamong, the R wave may correspond to a peak signal and, thus, may be mainly used to analyze a bio signal. For example, a hear rate may be measured through the number of R-wave signals generated per unit time and may be used to diagnose arrhythmia such as tachycardia or bradycardia and to measure overall heart performance ability.

Samsung's patent application published yesterday was filed in the U.S. on June 1, 2018. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

While Apple is working on blood pressure techniques as a future feature on Apple Watch (01 and 02), South Korea's 'Deep Medi' is preparing to launch an app for mobile phones that will enable users to take their blood pressure by simply touching the display.

The report noted that "While regulatory approval preparations are underway, Deep Medi has already licensed out its proprietary algorithm’s application programming interface to interested clients, such as Seoul-based Partron, which supplies sensors and modules to companies like Samsung Electronics. One of the sensors currently supplied to Samsung from Patron is for Iris-Recognition.