The devices, software and other health tech headlines of CES 2020

MobiHealthNews compiled a list of new digital health products and other announcements being unveiled this week in Las Vegas.
By MobiHealthNews
03:58 pm
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CES is back again with scores of new consumer tech products in tow, and digital health is no exception. Players big and small to Las Vegas each year to unveil and promote devices, whether they be focused on health monitoring, restful sleeping, fitness, infant care, hygiene or otherwise.

Read on below for a roundup of digital health product announcements from this year's trade show.

Medirom, a healthtech company based in Japan, has announced that at CES 2020 it will be working with MATRIX Industries, a Silicon Valley material science company, to deliver the world’s first health monitoring smartband that never requires charging. Named MOTHER, this smartband will enable users in the US and Japan to monitor their health activities 24-7. 


Oral-B rolled out its new Oral-B iO connected toothbrush and its corresponding app. Using pressure sensor technology and a visual display on the handle, the device is able to give users real-time analysis of their brushing. The app also includes seven personalized brushing modes. 


With a focus on sleep health, Sleep Number rolled out its Sleep Number Climate 360 smart bed. The bed allows users to adjust mattress temperature, as well as the hardness or softness of the mattress. In a corresponding app, users can view monthly wellness reports, sleep circadian analytics and a heart rate variability measurement. 


Ebb Therapeutics is also looking to the sleep space with the launch of its new wearable headband. The devices uses precise cooling to “reduce metabolic activity in the frontal cortex.” The headband, which is filled with fluid, is enabled with a cooling algorithm to optimize sleep during the night. 


Connected fitness device company Echelon released a slew of new devices at this year's show. 

Its new Echelon Stride is a smart treadmill equipped with on-demand classes and audio, while the Echelon Row offers a smart rowing machine that lets users control resistance. The rower can come with a tablet or integrated 22 inch screen. 

Looking to the biking space, Echelon's Ex-5S Indoor Cycle is a Bluetooth-enabled bike with on-demand classes. The company also launched its Reflect 50” Touch Fitness Mirror, which allows users to tap into celebrity fitness trainers for workouts including energy cardio, yoga, strength, Pilates and boxing. 


Philips has launched a new system called BrushSmart, which it created in collaboration with Delta Dental of California. The system includes a toothbrush that is able to collect and share real-time brushing data. As part of the program, users will get free brush heads while Philips and Sonicare will get additional data. 


Japanese company Xenoma unveiled a new line of smart pajamas and loungewear. The new tech promises to monitor sleep and activity levels, as well as when a person has slipped or fallen. This builds on the company’s existing products, which include a smart tracksuit and shirt.  


Olive Healthcare launched a new belly fat scanner dubbed Bello. The new technology, which landed a CES Innovation Award, uses near-infrared lights to track a stomach’s fat composition. It is also able to give users an overall health score. 


Textile Computing company Myant showcased its Skiin Connected Health & Wellness System. The system includes a line of smart underwear that can monitor a users’ ECG, stress level, sleep quality, activity and temperature. 


The OrCam Hear uses a video lens and artificial intelligence to help the hearing impaired identify who within a crowd is speaking to them. Worn around the neck as a pendant, the device observes a speaker's body gestures and other cues, isolates the subject's voice and streams it in real time to the wearer's Bluetooth hearing aids.


Fitness focused startup Ergatta launched its digital rowing machine, dubbed the Ergatta Digital Rower. The new technology allows users to tap into personalized challenges and games. The company uses gamification to let users participate in challenges and competitions against others using the connected machine. 


Hearing tech company Eargo launched its fourth generation connected hearing device called Neo HiFi. The new tool offers increased band with, feedback cancellation and a noise reduction algorithm designed to help improve performance processing speech while outside. The companion app lets users adjust noise levels and share reports with Eargo’s team. Neo HiFi is aimed at adults with mild-to-severe high-frequency hearing loss. 


Gentex Corporation teamed up with the Mayo clinic to create a new smart lighting system for medical use. The technology uses ambient room lighting along with camera-controlled adaptive task lighting. The idea is to provide the optimal lighting to both the surgical areas and patient rooms. 


AARP has rolled out a new product called HomeFit AR, an augmented reality app that can scan a room and figure out how the safety in that area can be improved for seniors. 


Aidar Health will be unveiling its latest product called MouthLab, which acts like a digital thermometer but is able to access a slew of other vitals as well, such as temperature, pulse rate and heart rate. 


 Embr launched on a new wearable that helps a user feel five degrees hotter or colder. Users can press a button to feel a cool or warm sensation on their wrist, which the company says can be linked to changing a user’s perception of overall temperature. 


SingFit is a new platform designed specifically to help seniors access music as a therapy. The tool is meant as a way for therapists to “implement singing experiences to improve cognitive function.”


Sana Health was designed to help with chronic pain. Its technology includes a headset that uses neurowave stimulation from light and sound to reduce pain. 


 

Baby monitoring company Nanit introduced a new wearable dubbed the Nanit Sleeping Bag, a fabric wearable designed to help monitor an infant’s breathing. The new product is meant to be used with the company’s Nanit Plus nursery camera, which can read the distinctive patterns on the infant’s sleeping bag and monitor their breathing in real time. This technology will be joining the company’s breathing wear line of clothing. 


Wearable company Reliefband Technologies unveiled two new smartwatches called Reliefband Travel and Reliefband Sports, which are designed to help prevent and treat nausea and vomiting. The company said the technology could help with a number of nausea related conditions including anxiety, hangovers, migraines, motion sickness, chemotherapy and morning sickness. The FDA-cleared product uses a programmed pulse “with a highly specific waveform, frequency, and intensity to stimulate the median nerve on the underside of the wrist.” This pulse is then used to block the waves of nausea produced by the stomach. 

The company is also showing off a prototype version of its Reliefband Sport that can instead be attached to the Apple Watch.


Valencell launched a new blood pressure sensor system that can be integrated into hearables or wearables. The new system uses photoplethysmography and inertial sensors. Currently the company is working with its strategic partner Sonion on a version of the technology for hearing aids. 


Samsung's myriad contributions to this year's show included a trio of health-related announcements. On the product side is Ballie, a small, rolling companion robot that the electronics company says can act as a fitness assistant and mobile interface for use around the home thanks to its on-board AI capabilities. 

Meanwhile, Samsung also announced two new collaborations with Kaiser Permanente and IrisVision. The former has yielded a home cardiac rehabilitation system that employs a Samsung smartwatch and the company's HeartWise smartphone app to deliver exercise reminders and monitor activity. The latter will bring IrisVision's low vision technology for patients with macular degeneration to Samsung's smartphones and headsets. 


French company URGOTECH launched its new sleep-focused product URGOnight. The new offering, which includes an EEG headband and app, was developed to help users with daytime sleep training. The technology uses neruofeedback therapy to train the brain to produce brainwaves associated with sleep. The system is intended to be used 20 minutes a day, three days a week. 

“Seventy million Americans have issues falling and staying asleep making it a huge problem for health technology to address,” Guirec Le Lous, founder of URGOTECH, said in an email to MobiHealthNews. “Most sleep tech solutions concentrate on monitoring sleep patterns during the night to make lifestyle recommendations to change behavior. URGOnight ... is a system used during the day to help people induce sleep naturally by helping them train the brain to produce the brainwaves clinically associated with sleep. It treats the root cause rather than the symptoms of poor sleep, and unlike other sleep aids does so with long-lasting results and no side effects.”


IEVA has launched a new smartwatch that helps users monitor environmentall factors, like pollution and sun exposure, as well as activity. The wearable, which is marketed as both a health and beauty product, will also give users education about how environmental factors contribute to aging. The technology monitors ambient temperature, humidity, sun exposure, luminosity, noise, indoor and outdoor pollution levels, heat rate and activity. 

“There are many ways in which pollution affects the skin. It can cause the skin to become dehydrated, clogged, sensitive and irritated as well to be less supple, tone and radiant,” Jean Karam, chairman and CEO of IEVA, wrote in an email to MobiHealthNews. “This is where Time-C can help. The device monitors environments to provide users with insights into their surroundings and their impacts on their health, wellness, skin and more. The technology also uses this information to provide users with recommendations, tips and tools they can use to combat pollution and their surrounding elements."


Elvie, a London-based femtech company, announced a new insights analysis feature for its smart breast pumps that will provide users with a data-based breakdown of their pumping sessions. Through the connected app, users can receive an overview on their total time spent using the pump, total volume of milk pumped and the average volume of milk expressed during 10-minute sessions. The company noted that it is looking to further update the feature with more longitudinal pumping data analyses. 


French digital health company Withings has unveiled its ScanWatch wearable, which will include an ECG and Sp02 sensor. 

The watch comes with a PPG sensor, which will continuously monitor the user's heart rate and alert users if there is an irregularity. If any issues are detected, the watch will prompt the user to take an ECG reading. Watch wearers can read the ECG on the screen of their watch or in the watch’s accompanying Health Mate app. The app can store the reading and any notes that go along with the reading. Meanwhile the Sp02 feature will be able to measure oxygen continuously and help identify sleep apnea.  

Currently the technology’s ECG feature is being reviewed by the FDA, and the company expects clearance sometime in Q2.  


Lumi by Pampers — a collaboration between the diaper company, Verily and Logitech — is an infant monitoring system that combines an HD video, audio, temperature and humidity tracker; an activity tracker that attaches to special diapers; and a connected app. The platform provides parents with a quick read on their child's sleep, diaper activity, feeding and more, and includes in-app educational content developed in partnership with pediatricians and baby development groups. 


EEG headband maker Muse is back with another version of its sleep and meditation product, the Muse S. Although it shares many similar features with its less costly predecessors, the new connected headset is lighter, has a longer battery life, wraps a comfort-fit fabric around the whole head and most notably supports the company's "Go-to-Sleep Journeys" — responsive voice and sound-based audio programs that help lull the wearer into rest.


Singular Hearing is releasing a new artificial intelligence-powered hearing app dubbed HeardThat. The app uses and algorithm to help separate speech from background noise. 

“Machine learning algorithms require too much processing power to run on hearing aids or other small devices,” Bruce Sharpe, founder and CEO Singular Hearing, said in a statement. “By leveraging the smartphone, our HeardThat App is freed from hardware constraints and so can do much more. And because it is an agile and flexible software solution, HeardThat can be quickly and continually improved upon.” 


The Mateo Smart Bathroom Mat connects to a smartphone or connected mirror coaching app to help individuals monitor their weight and posture. Using "medical-grade pressure sensing technology," the system is able to recognize individual users and their histories to better recommend nutrition pointers and exercises.


CareOS Poseidon is an in-home smart mirror that focuses on personal hygiene, skincare and wellness. Alongside makeup application features, the mirror tracks and analyzes the user's skin health, encourages teeth brushing and other hygiene activities, and supports the health monitoring features other CareOS smart home products.


IoT company Essence Group has unveiled a new multi-sensor fall detection system for seniors. Built on Texas Instrument radar technology, the specialized API fits into Essence's Care@Home senior monitoring platform, which places a number of integrated devices and wearables around the home to identify seniors' physical activity, safety and physical or verbal panic.


Royal Philips hit the showfloor with new products focused on infant care and sleep health. Chief among the former is Baby+, a free app that parents can use to track the growth and development of their child while receiving development stage-specific advice on their care. 

On the sleep from, the company has unveiled the second generation of its SmartSleep Deep Sleep Headband. The device's standout features include a smaller and lighter designed, updated app, soothing sounds to help the user fall asleep and a smart alarm that awakens them during an ideal phase of their sleep cycle. 


The Roo Prenatal Heartbeat Monitor is a connected in-home device that listens, replays and records an unborn baby's heartbeat. Powered by Hubble Connected, the device is primarily controlled through the connected app, but can also be integrated with an Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Digital health developments in 2020 and beyond

The next decade is sure to be a test of digital health technologies — but it will also test traditional health systems. In January, MobiHealthNews will be looking at the possibilities for digital health in 2020 and beyond.

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