Smartwatches have added more and more functions, such as, eSIM, GPS, sleep monitoring, heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring and so on.
In our daily life, the common devices we use to detect body fat are body fat scales and sebaceous pliers.
Body Fat Scale is a weighing scale that can measure fat, water, etc. in addition to weight. The principle of the body fat scale is that muscle contains more blood and other water, can conduct electricity, and fat is not conductive. Because the channel conductor of the current in the body is the muscle, from the ease of passage of the current can know the weight of the muscle, from which you can judge, in the proportion of body weight.
sebaceous clamp is an instrument for detecting body fat, the advantage is that it is easy to carry and simple to use, but it is necessary to derive body fat according to the formula.
So can you measure body fat with a smartwatch?
The technical principle of measuring body fat with a smartwatch is similar to that of a body fat scale, which measures the wearer's body fat through bioelectrical impedance technology. Samsung has done a clinical experiment in Seoul St. Mary's Hospital recruited 203 volunteers aged 18-68 years old, Samsung will be a wearable device strap and watch body integrated with a special sensor for data collection, volunteers wear the device, finger pressure on the front of the watch body sensors, and the human body to form a current cycle, and then complete the body fat detection. The whole process is similar to measuring ECG with Apple Watch.
Samsung filed a patent in 2015, which also suggests that Samsung may be developing a watchband with body fat measurement, and will add a new feature called "Body Composition" to its smart wearable products, which will allow users to measure the percentage of body fat through the smart watch. Body Composition," a feature that allows users to measure body fat percentage through their smartwatches.
According to the patent document, the band is equipped with electrodes that allow the user to place two fingers in the relevant positions to perform a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), which calculates the ratio of fat to water and analyzes the electrical resistance between adipose and non-adipose tissues using a low-power electrical current.
To date, there are no small devices like smartwatches on the market that can perform BIA body fat measurements. Samsung's patent, if realized, would be a major breakthrough for wearables in the medical and health field, along with the ECG feature of the Apple Watch Series 4.