Samsung smartphones could measure body fat

Samsung has just been granted a patent that will allow it to measure level of the company’s smartphones users’ body fat. In order to do that, dedicated sensors will be put either on the phone’s chassis or on the screen. They will analyze the characteristic of the low-level electric current induced when the user touches the device.

The patent describes the technique as: „acquiring the object’s impedance information on the basis of the intensity of the input current and the intensity of the measured voltage; and acquiring the object’s body fat information on the basis of the impedance information.”

Now, the big question is: will Samsung be able to make this actually work with high level of accuracy. The problem with all the health and fitness features found in smartphones and smartwatches is that they are not really reliable and trustworthy. If Samsung manages to make the sensors accurate, this feature may just become much more useful than, e.g., counting footsteps or telling the user whether they are happy or not.

Unfortunately, there is no information about when the new patent might be put to real use. Let’s hope it happens soon.

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