Nokia Reportedly Set to Launch Health-Focused Wearable Device
[Today's Highlights]
○ Fitness tracking company Lemonade Lab raises $5.8 million
○ Apple Open-Sources ResearchKit: MyHeart Counts Launches in the U.S. First
○ Nokia may launch health wearable devices
○ By 2020, the global telemedicine market will reach $34.2 billion
1. Fitness Tracking Company Lemonade Lab Raises $5.8 Million in Funding
Boston-based fitness tracking company Lemonade Lab has successfully raised $5.8 million, led by FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group. This financing round brings Lemonade Lab’s total funding to at least $10.3 million.
Foxconn’s investment is strategic, as it will be responsible for manufacturing the health-tracking devices that Lemonade Lab is set to launch. Lemonade Lab has developed a fitness tracking system designed to help athletes enhance performance and reduce injuries; the system comprises a health-tracking device and a mobile application called Lemonade Fit. The app provides coaches with feedback based on athletes’ performance data and is currently available on iOS and Android smartphones.
Additionally, users can create push notifications within the app to help them track their fitness goals during workouts. This health-tracking device can be worn on the wrist or mounted on a bicycle. The company initially focused on competitive cyclists and athletes. The app can track runners’ time, distance, speed, and route, as well as cyclists’ speed, elevation, gradient, and time.
Lemonade Lab plans to launch its products in the United States, Japan, France, and Taiwan later this year.
2. Apple’s ResearchKit Goes Open Source: MyHeart Counts Leads the Way in the U.S.
Starting August 10, Apple’s ResearchKit is no longer limited to the United States; MyHeart Counts is now accessible in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
ResearchKit is a framework specifically designed for medical research, enabling researchers to develop various healthcare apps through this open-source infrastructure to collect patient data. At Apple’s spring event in March, the company unveiled five apps built on ResearchKit, targeting asthma, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, breast cancer, and cardiovascular disease, respectively.
MyHeart Counts is one such app targeting cardiovascular diseases. Jointly launched by Apple and Stanford Medicine, this application aims to monitor and collect users’ physiological data. Current medical research faces limitations such as difficulties in recruiting volunteers and the subjective nature of survey data. Through ResearchKit, however, healthcare institutions can rapidly and extensively gather data. After installation, users are required to complete a brief questionnaire to determine their eligibility for the study.
Alan Yeung, Medical Director of Cardiovascular Health at Stanford, stated that within less than 24 hours of the launch of MyHeart Counts, registered users exceeded 11,000—meaning 11,000 individuals were willing to participate in medical research, equivalent to the volume of data that 50 medical institutions would take a year to collect. Perhaps ResearchKit will indeed transform the future model of healthcare.
3. Nokia May Launch Health Wearable Devices
According to foreign media reports, Nokia may launch health wearable devices based on the Android system or its Linux-based cloud operating system.
Last month, Nokia’s current CEO, Rajeev Suri, announced that the company would enter the “digital health” sector. According to insiders, Nokia’s “New Devices Product” team is developing wearable devices related to health and medical care. These devices will be equipped with high-precision sensors capable of collecting and analyzing data, and will transmit reports via Android sensors.
Additionally, Nokia’s newly filed patent offers some clues. According to the patent documentation, Nokia has developed a health wristband capable of collecting data such as heart rate, blood pressure, and skin hydration. The wristband tightens when data collection is required and automatically loosens afterward.
In addition, Nokia has also filed patents related to wearable devices, such as notification display and floating interaction.
4. By 2020, the global telemedicine market will reach $34.2 billion
By the end of 2020, the global telemedicine market was projected to reach $34.27 billion. North America represents the largest market, accounting for over 40% of the global market size. According to a new market research report titled “Global Telemedicine Market – Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2015–2020),” the largest segments within the telemedicine market are telepathology, teleradiology, teledermatology, and telepsychology.
The primary drivers of the telemedicine market include the growing elderly population, rising healthcare costs, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, technological innovations, and insufficient hospital infrastructure to accommodate large patient volumes. Constraints on the telemedicine market encompass inadequate resources in developing and less-developed countries, lack of physician support, high technology costs, and poor implementation.