Your Galaxy Watch Can Warn You 5 Minutes Before You Faint: Here's How It Works

The primary threat that comes with passing out isn't the blackout itself but the aftermath of falling, which could cause severe injuries and trauma. While Fall Detection has been a thing on Pixel smartwatches, Samsung's version may go above and beyond by giving users a heads-up before gravity takes over. If you own a Galaxy Watch, it will be able to predict that you're about to pass out.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Can Predict Faintings

In a newly published study by Samsung conducted alongside Korea's Chung-Ang University, researchers have shown that the Galaxy Watch 6 can predict a fainting spell before the lights go out. While the tests were carried out using the Watch 6, fall detection should also be present on prior or later models. 

Image Credit: Samsung

For those wondering how Galaxy Watch 6 can do it. All Galaxy Smartwatches feature stress detection, Blood pressure monitoring, and heart rate monitoring. Thanks to this, it can track what's called a Vasovagal syncope. It's a common phenomenon that affects 40% of people at some point in their lives.

To test it out and spot a crash before it happens, a medical team strapped the Galaxy Watch 6 to 132 individuals prone to these episodes. They tracked the users' standard optical heart rate sensors and ran that raw, fluctuating data through an AI model.

The outcome, which was recently highlighted in the European Heart Journal Digital Health, suggests that the watch's AI successfully identified the biological warnings of a blackout up to five minutes in advance. The accuracy rate was an astonishing 84.6%, complemented by a 90% sensitivity rate.

Image Credit: Beebom

Fall detection is the gold standard of wearables, with both Google and Apple intensely marketing it on their smartwatches. However, it's strictly reactive and calls for help only after a fall is detected and a person's skull has bounced off the pavement. 

This breakthrough flips the script. Giving a user a five-minute warning provides ample time to sit down and grab on to something or alert a bystander to call for help. This could help completely neutralise the risk of a fall before it happens, making it the coolest safety technology we've seen in years.