Connecting the Dots: Samsung’s New Wearable Project Simband, SAMI and Silicon Valley

People are still talking about last week’s event at San Francisco’s SFJAZZ Center and it isn’t about Jazz music. Samsung launched the ‘Samsung Digital Health Initiative’, an ambitious personal health and wellness initiative. The event consisted of two main demonstrations: Simband and SAMI. First, here are some of the key highlights of them.

Simband

• Open hardware reference design for wearable technology.

• It could be used to track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure.

• Capable of integrating the most advanced sensing technologies in the world.

• Simband is being designed in a modular way, allowing for innovation in areas like battery life, form factor and noninvasive sensor technology.

• Third-parties can create and contribute their own advanced sensors, algorithms and other technologies to develop products.

• Simband will not be sold commercially

SAMI (Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions)

• It will be a cloud-based open software platform.

• It could be used to collect data from a variety of sources, aggregate it and display it in a format that consumers can use to better understand what is taking place within their bodies.

• It will allow devices and sensors to securely store data in the cloud regardless of the source’s format or structure.

• SAMI will make more information available, break open information silos and give applications and services access to large amounts of data to provide better insights.

• Under Samsung’s approach, SAMI will allow data to be controlled by the individual generating it and not by third-parties, so that personal health data can be better protected.

As you can see the initiative will be based on open hardware and software platforms that will accelerate the development of advanced sensors, algorithms, and data collection and analysis. The combination of Simband-designed sensor technologies and algorithms and SAMI-based software will take individual understanding of the body to a new level – for the first time giving voice to a deeper understanding of personal health and wellness. In addition, through the development of new sensing technologies and software, it’s possible that entirely new and previously unimagined insights into health and wellness could be generated.

Silicon Valley

What is also interesting is that Samsung held the event at SFJAZZ Center, one of the hottest spots for the San Francisco locals. It is not a coincidence that Samsung chose this venue, because Samsung is no stranger to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. In fact, Samsung has been in the valley for decades, including R&D centers for nearly 30 years. As it was reminded at the Samsung West Forum at CES 2014, Samsung’s portfolio and presence in Silicon Valley have been growing.

Evidently, the demonstration was led by Samsung’s Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC) team. The team is based in Sand Hill Road, California, a road that provides a very quick access to Silicon Valley. According to the team, the Simband and SAMI have been collaborative projects, including a partnership with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Combined with recent agreements between the two, they will validate new approaches to personal health and wellness and are designed to help entrepreneurs bring innovative products to market more quickly. Surely, we can expect some groundbreaking technologies from the Samsung Digital Health Initiative and prospering reputation of Sand Hill Road as origin of the world’s most life-changing technologies.

To support its Digital Health Initiative, Samsung also announced the Samsung Digital Health Challenge, a $50 million investment fund dedicated to innovative start-ups and technologies in the connected health area. The goal of the fund is to stimulate creative new approaches to digital health and Samsung’s open platforms. Additional information about the Samsung Digital Health Challenge may be found at http://www.samsung.com/ssic.

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