SAMSUNG HAS TAKEN another step into the wearable tech and fitness tracking markets by revealing a new wristband that can provide real-time health and fitness information.

At a press event in San Francisco,  Samsung revealed its new wearable device called Simband. It’s described as an “investigational device” which can be used to gather “vital diagnostic information” from a person.

This would include factors like heart rate, movement, body temperature and other metrics on a continuous basis. The wrist-mounted device has sensors placed on the bottom which could be expanded with extra hardware to track other things.

The device is the focal point of its new healthcare platform SAMI (Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions), which combines both hardware and cloud to for sensors to gather and store health data which it would use to improve wearable devices in the future.

The device and platform aren’t ready to be released just yet, but the Simband will be made available to developers later this year. Consumers won’t be able to buy one, but Samsung hopes that both its prototype device will help pave the way for future wearable health devices with mass appeal.

It plans to market SAMI by hosting a developer challenge, setting aside a $50 million fund to groups working on healthcare tracking projects. It’s also working with groups like the University of California and other research groups to deal with management of data gathered from both the platform and devices.

Samsung / Vimeo

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