Smart watch

Working of smart watch

• Diabetic coma is a serious, life-threatening complication of diabetes in which the patient falls
into a state of unconsciousness. It constitutes a medical emergency, if left untreated, since it
may result in permanent brain damage or death. All insulin dependent diabetic patients are
susceptible to the “dead in bed syndrome” a term to describe a person fund dead in bed
without clear reason. Especially type 1 diabetic patients, including children are among the
high risk group. A study of “causes of death” in children with insulin dependent diabetes in
United Kingdom reports 71% of death were caused by diabetes and 10% of those found
dead in bed (1). Recent study highlighted type 1 diabetes increases the risk for sudden
unexplained death in United States, generating concern that diabetes processes and/or
treatments underlie these deaths. In this trial, around 20% (4 out of 19) of sudden death
caused by diabetic coma and three of those found dead in bed (2). Both studies indicate that
diabetes care still far from its goals despite of advances in insulin delivery and glucose
measurement systems. Giving the abovementioned fact, expectation of higher mortality rate
of diabetic patients in developing countries is highly likely. Actually, more than 80% of
people with diabetes live in low- and middle-income countries (3) and cannot afford
implantable glucose sensor for continues blood glucose monitoring which has high initial and
maintenance cost (4). Therefore having an adaptable, simple and cheap system to monitor
the extreme case of diabetic condition could save many patients’ life.
Working of smart watch
• Smartwatches have a myriad of benefits, but most people do not know
how they work. In this article, I explain the mechanisms that enable
smartwatches to do awesome stuff.
• Smartwatches work with smartphones. There is usually a mobile app
designed to connect with smartwatches through Bluetooth. Switch the
Bluetooth on your mobile phone and your smartwatch on. Then, pair
both devices. You are ready to get the best out of your smartwatch.
• The subject of how smartwatches work is very broad. There are various
activities that you can do with a smartwatch. Over the next subheadings,
I will describe how smartwatches work for different purposes.
How smart watches measure sleep?
Many smartwatch users think, “How do smartwatches and sleep track my
sleep?” It’s a simple process.
Smartwatches come with a tri-axis accelerometer. This is a minute device that
monitors movement. With the use of this device, smartwatches start the
process of actigraphy. Actigraphy is a process whereby your smartwatch
expresses your movements as sleep patterns. The tri-axis accelerometer starts
the process that determines your sleep quality through movement.
• Smartwatches also check your sleep by using sensors. The tri-axis
accelerometer is a type of sensor. With sensors, they watch your heart rate
while you sleep. You can access the data on your smartphone or smartwatch
after your sleep. This data, in turn, enables you to sleep better next time.
How smart watches check stress
Smartwatches measure stress by monitoring your heart rate. Your heart rate is how fast your
heartbeats. It is the average number of beats your heart produces per minute. Knowing this
could go a long way in determining if you have stressed yourself or not.
Yet, monitoring heart rate is not enough. There are other newer ways that smartwatches
detect if you’re stressed or not. The most popular is Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Heart
Rate Variability is the time between each heartbeat. Generally, a high HRV is usually
synonymous with being healthy. Medical professionals have linked low HRV to Heart
Disease and other health issues.
Various factors affect your HRV. So, having a low or high HRV might not mean that you’re
healthy or unhealthy. Posture/position and age are also factors that affect your HRV.
• Your body reacts in certain ways when you have overworked it. It shows through emotion
and physical strain. All these reactions affect your HRV. Smartwatches can detect these
feelings and determine your stress levels.
How smart watches track calories
Fitness enthusiasts always wonder how smartwatches estimate calorie loss. They ask this question
because they are skeptical about the accuracy of a smartwatch. They want to be sure that they are
not given misleading information by any software. Many of them have come to trust a mobile app.
They wonder if a smartwatch would have similar capabilities. Smartwatches are computers. Of
course, you can rely on them to track and calculate calories. There are a few methods through
which they do this.
Again, smartwatches rely on your movement to determine how many calories you burn. They use
sensors to check your movements. The faster and more exerting your movements, the higher your
calorie loss.
• Smartwatches also estimate your burned calories by considering the muscle group that you’re
exercising. Some muscle groups need more work than others to develop. Hence, training them
would burn more calories. And your smartwatch will show this. Note that sometimes, you might
have to input these activities into your smartwatch. Your smartwatch may not immediately notice
that you are engaging in physical activity. This depends on the brand and how often you use your
device.
How smart watches calculate step
This is another variable that the tri-axis accelerometer helps to check. The device can detect
that the wearer is on the move. You usually share personal information such as weight and
height with your smartwatch. This further enables the smartwatch to know what activity is
being carried out and how fast.
Many smartwatches fault at providing the accurate step count for their users. Smartwatches
use motion sensors to determine these things. It is difficult for the motion sensors to
determine the specific number of steps taken. Motion sensors generally detect motion. So,
what’s to stop your motion sensor counting steps when you are moving your hands in the
kitchen?
• There are a few ways to make your smartwatch’s step count estimation more accurate. If
you want to calculate steps, you could remove the tracker before other activities. Some of
these activities can be mistaken as walking by the sensor. Also, you could write down your
steps when you are walking. That way, you remove the mistakes and false steps from your
records.
How smart watches check blood pressure
This is usually an important one for middle-aged smartwatch users. In recent times,
smartwatches have been using pulse oximetry to calculate blood pressure. Pulse oximetry
happens with the use of a pulse oximeter, a sensor that illuminates the skin. It also checks the
changes in light absorption.
Some watches also use heart rate measurement and ECG. The heart is an essential organ in
the circulatory system. Hence, it is quite difficult to check blood without involving the heart.
In smartwatches, ECGs are reliable to an extent, and they come with many wearable devices.
• Blood pressure is a sensitive issue. If you have high blood pressure, you should check your
BP regularly. A smartwatch will be handy for this. Still, it is expedient to go to the doctor’s
from time to time for a more detailed analysis. The sphygmomanometer gives more
accurate readings when it comes to blood pressure. So, you could get one for intermittent
checks. Many people do not like the feel of the sphygmomanometer around their arms. So,
they use the smartwatch’s estimate anyway.
Components of a smart watch
This article mainly lists the 7 most used sensor types in smart watches
currently on the market, namely:
Accelerometer
Heart Rate Monitor
SpO2 Sensor
Skin Temperature Sensors
ECG Sensor
Gyroscope
• GPS
Accelerometer
Accelerometers are commonly used to measure acceleration – the rate of change
of an object’s velocity; roughly speaking, they can detect whether the user is
moving. As a result, it is the most common sensor found in all types of
smartwatches. For example, all Starmax smartwatch series are equipped with
accelerometers to track users’ movements, such as S5, S90 (kids watch), and
GTS6.

• The most typical feature of an accelerometer in a smartwatch is motion

tracking. Taking the Starmax GTS6 as an example, the accelerometer inside
Starmax GTS6 can measure the user’s activity levels when running or jogging.
Based on these measurements, it can count steps and thus calculate distance,
calories, and other data.
Heart rate monitor
SpO2 Sensor
Flow chart
Block diagram
Logic
• Using smart watch sensors, three body responses were used in algorithm flowchart (Figure). The first step is
the lack of motion, which is sensed by the accelerometer and shows the status of sleeping, resting or coma.
Using suitable data readout, it is even possible to detect tremor from centimeter scale movement and
currently are using by many to qualify the users sleep. The program will start automatically after sensing an
activity. After an active period, patient immobility will be evaluated. If the application detects a nonmoving
condition for few minutes, it starts to read the heart rate data. If there is no heart rate signal the application
ends and will restart with another sign of activity. This mostly happens when patient take off the device. This
means wearing the device is a compulsory step to activate the application and even the device can remind the
patient to wear it if it is around sleeping time. But if the heart rate sensor works, the application will
continuously evaluate the heart rate. Tachycardia is one of symptoms of hyper or hypoglycemia and helps
to monitor a diabetic patient extreme conditions (5, 6). However; it might happen in case of consuming
caffeine, smoking, nightmare or other pathologic conditions. The application would evaluate an increasing
heart rate combined to patient immobility as predictive sign of coma or dangerous state and trigger alarm
sound. In addition, some smart watches equipped with humidity sensor with the capability of sensing skin
humidity. This unique property also can detect skin moisture which is a sign of excessive perspiration in
hypoglycemic diabetic patients. Therefore, the application evaluates skin moisture in an immobile patient and
unusual increase in skin moisture will be assessed as danger status as well and leads the initiation of an alarm.
By triggering a sound alarm, the patient or his/her relatives can deactivate the alarm, monitor his/her blood
glucose and/or start other medical intervention. If the application dose not receives any respond, the second
alarming system will be activated within a minute. In this step the application will access to cellular network
directly and try to contact (call or message) to numbers in its data base including national emergency number
in an ordered manner. The two layers alarming system prevents application to make unnecessary calls in case
of error or other events.