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How your smartwatch and AI might detect early signs of illness. Long before you notice the symptoms of, say, the flu or COVID-19, your body starts changing in subtle ways. Taken individually, changes to your skin temperature, resting heart rate or respiratory patterns may not mean much. But when combined and compared to your baseline, they may hint that you're coming down with something. Research has shown that wearables can detect physiological changes from respiratory infections before symptoms appear. (It's worth noting that they're detecting the body's response to an infection, not the virus or bacteria itself.) A recent study from Texas A&M and Stanford found that smartwatches may detect early signs of COVID-19 and influenza within hours of infection. The researchers estimated that encouraging people to isolate, get tested and seek treatment earlier could reduce pandemic transmission by up to 50 percent. Of course, wearables, pandemics and the seasonal flu have been around for many years, but recent developments in AI and sensor technology could push things forward. Companies like Google, Oura and Whoop have all introduced some version of an AI coach or advisor in their apps, helping users make sense of their data. There are also features that aren't labeled "AI," like Oura's Symptom Radar and Apple's Vitals that piece together information from multiple sensors and compare it with your baseline. And the processing ability of the latest AI language models, like Google's Gemini in the company's Health Coach, will likely play an increasingly important role in tying it all together and suggesting actionable steps. But like proprietary recovery scores, much of that AI analysis will happen behind the scenes, offering little that doctors can reliably act on. At best, AI health analyses will nudge people to seek treatment earlier. At worst, they might encourage people to substitute computer-generated advice for consultations with medical professionals. While today's AI systems come with warnings to check with real-world doctors, there is still the risk of people taking wearable data or app insights as the be-all and end-all verdict on their health. Whether it's information from a miniaturized sensor on your wrist or advice given by a chatbot on your phone, nothing can replace regular physical health checkups with doctors and medical professionals. The future of wearable health probably won't be a smartwatch that diagnoses disease from your wrist - the fabled wrist Tricorder. Instead, it's more likely to be a device that quietly watches for patterns, nudges you when something looks off and gives you another piece of useful information to discuss with your doctor.

Your Samsung Galaxy Watch now supports blood pressure tracking - but it's not the same as Apple's hypertension alerts. There's one minor catch, though Samsung first announced plans to bring blood pressure monitoring to the brand's lineup of Galaxy smartwatches all the way back in 2019. Now, the feature is available for U.S. watch users with the Galaxy Watch 4 or newer. This is a major milestone for Samsung, which is in an epic arms race with the competition, including not just Apple and Google but Oura, Ultrahuman, and Whoop, too, to see which brand can add real-time blood pressure monitoring to a wearable device first. Here's everything you need to know about blood pressure tracking on the best Samsung Galaxy Watches, including the one notable drawback of the feature. Article continues below Latest Videos From Tom's Guide Best Tech Gifts Under $100 0 seconds of 1 minute, 30 seconds Volume 0% Samsung brings blood pressure tracking to Galaxy Watch in the U.S. It's worth mentioning that blood pressure tracking has been available on Samsung Galaxy Watch models in markets outside of the U.S. for some time now. However, this is officially the first time that the feature has been approved for use in the U.S. However, before you can turn your Galaxy Watch 4 or newer into an on-wrist blood pressure monitor, you'll first need to calibrate it. This requires a traditional blood pressure cuff. The calibration process, required every 28 days, is pretty straightforward, though. You take a reading with the old-school cuff while wearing your Galaxy Watch on the opposite wrist. The Samsung Health app provides a simple set of instructions to ensure you're recording an accurate reading. Once you've completed the steps in the app, your Galaxy Watch is ready to roll; you can now take blood pressure readings. The resulting data includes everything you'd get from a traditional blood pressure monitor, including Systolic blood pressure, Diastolic blood pressure, and pulse (heart rate).