As with every year on September 29, World Heart Day brings together everyone to engage in conversations about heart health. Primarily, it serves as a yearly reminder to every individual to get educated about heart disease risk factors, prevention, and early intervention.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is currently the deadliest illness, affecting over 20.5 million every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), with a majority of deaths happening in low- and middle-income countries. The World Heart Federation’s goal is to lower this number by promoting greater public education, especially since 80% of premature deaths are preventable.
Transforming cardiovascular health through wearables
Wearable technology has definitely improved our awareness of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which encompasses heart conditions that could sometimes fly under the radar. While smart wearables took time to grow in popularity, the range of features now made available on smartwatches have played a major role in attracting more health-conscious users. Wearables can help users optimise their workouts and keeps them motivated to exercise more often, which in turn improves users’ cardiovascular health.
Additionally, issues like arrhythmia, i.e. atrial fibrillation, especially require real-time and long-term monitoring and wearables can be a great help in this regard. Research has shown that atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm condition and is linked to an elevated risk of stroke, heart failure and dementia. With PPG Arrhythmia detection in smartwatches like Huawei’s new HUAWEI WATCH GT 4, users can keep tabs on their hearts and be alerted to some early warning signs of arrhythmia.
TruSeenTM 5.5+ for more accurate heartrate monitoring
Responding to increasing needs in the cardiovascular health sector, Huawei has spent the past 10 years developing its own heart monitoring solutions for its smart wearables, culminating in its very own TruSeenTM technology. Huawei first developed its own sensor solutions back in 2017, enabling wearable devices to support six types of dynamic heart rate monitoring.
Later on, in 2020, a high-performance ECG sensor was incorporated into the hardware module of TruSeen™ 4.0, breaking new ground with medical-grade electrocardiogram (ECG) detection capabilities and continuous blood oxygen monitoring functions. HUAWEI ECG App went on to obtain a European Union CE MDR medical device certification in 2022.
Huawei has most recently launched the improved TruSeenTM 5.5+ in its HUAWEI WATCH GT 4. Taking a big step forward from previous versions, TruSeenTM 5.5+ incorporates an upgraded algorithm that enhances the accuracy of the data by learning the user’s varying activity states and personal activity history. This approach improves the data accuracy by 30%, even under less-than-optimal reading conditions such as during dynamic exercises (skipping rope, running, etc.) or in low-temperature environments.
The improved TruSeenTM 5.5+ greatly enhances dynamic heart rate readings, from PPG arrhythmia detection to heart rate monitoring during sleep, which can alert users to any early warning signs of atrial fibrillation. Using TruSeenTM 5.5+’s algorithms, users can receive more precise readings for better health recommendations.
The heart is where the life flows from. It impacts all other vital components of our physical health. That’s why brands like Huawei are making it their core mission to improve access to early diagnoses and prevention of diseases through healthy living, empowering users to take control of their health – beginning with the heart.
