A common protocol that enables wearables and health devices to talk to each other could be on the way – from the brains behind Matter.
Matter is a smart home protocol, which launched last year. It provides a single standard for smart home devices to communicate, enabling people to buy smart home devices confident in the knowledge that they will work with each other seamlessly. You can read more about that on our sister site The Ambient.
The CSA is the organization behind Matter, and it’s a collaboration between (surprisingly) the biggest names in tech including Apple, Google, and Amazon.
And the CSA has now started a new working group dedicated to wearables and health devices – which it has outlined in a blog post.
The Verge has reported on the creation of the Health and Wellness Working Group, which is chaired by Aaron Goldmuntz, COO of the Center for Medical Interoperability.
“’Aging-in-place’ is just one of the many facets of global health and wellness that requires technology to not only bridge anticipated gaps, but to identify new ways technology, and particularly IoT devices, can improve our health and overall wellness,” read the post.
Wareable has long opined on the need for wearable companies to tear down walled gardens and work together effectively in sharing data.
But the aims of the project go beyond getting your Fitbit step counts into Apple Health – it’s about connecting consumer medical devices, which are set to revolutionize stay-at-home care for the aging population.
This could create a system where an Abbott continuous glucose monitor (CGM) could mesh data with activity data from an Apple Watch, and blood pressure data from your Valencell device.
Going further, the Fall Detection on Apple Watch could even unlock the smart lock on the front door, to enable emergency services to enter the home.
And like Matter, it will enable ideas and products that yet haven’t been realized.
When we spoke to leading wearable companies, CEOs and entrepreneurs about the key trends in wearables over the next 24 months, one area stood out: medical-grade consumer wearables.
While the industry has operated in walled gardens up until now, the stakes admittedly haven’t been high.
As wearables now start to tackle meaningful and revolutionary change, it seems the time is right to start making them work together.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.