Samsung's New Integrations to Bring More Wearables to the Workplace

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3Q 2017 | IN-4740

In September 2017, Samsung Electronics America announced a number of new wearable partnerships designed to bring wearable solutions to the workplace. The solutions have been developed thanks to integrations with SoloProtect, Reemo, and Ability Wearables, to bring wearable technology to remote workers, healthcare providers, and high-risk workers.

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Samsung’s New Integrations with its Wearable Devices

NEWS


In September 2017, Samsung Electronics America announced a number of new wearable partnerships designed to bring wearable solutions to the workplace. The solutions have been developed thanks to integrations with SoloProtect, Reemo, and Ability Wearables, to bring wearable technology to remote workers, healthcare providers, and high-risk workers. 

What the Solutions Involve

IMPACT


The four new integrations bring different devices with different features, allowing the devices to be applied to specific use cases:

  • SoloProtect – SoloProtect, which offers 24/7 employee safety monitoring devices and lone worker protection solutions, is working with Samsung to bring the Gear S3 device to lone, remote workers. These include real estate agents, home healthcare workers, utility workers, and transportation professionals. These workers often visit strangers in their homes, or work in an area with a high safety risk. Using geo-location, emergency alerts, status checks, and SoloProtect’s Emergency Dispatch Center (EDC), workers who wear Samsung Gear S3 devices can activate a Red Alert to immediately contact the EDC for assistance. This not only ensures that they are kept safe, but also offers them the peace of mind knowing that help is at hand, allowing them to concentrate on their work and improve productivity.
  • Reemo – Reemo, which offers a platform to allow healthcare workers and caregivers to track senior activity levels such as  heart rate and sleep quality, is working with Samsung to bring Gear S3 and S2 devices to aid with monitoring senior health within care facilities. The platform provides insights into a senior patient’s health aspects, allowing caregivers to monitor trends and activity levels, whilst the smartwatch provides a communications interface, ensuring that the senior can easily connect to help when required.
  • Ability Wearables – Ability Wearables, a data intelligence company that uses wearable sensor data to improve health, safety, and activity, is working with Samsung to bring Gear Fit2 and S3 devices to workers with a high risk of suffering from fatigue. These include those who work long shifts, transportation workers, construction workers, and healthcare professionals, all of which have a high risk for falling asleep on the job. Samsung’s devices, which connect through Samsung’s wearable API platform, GearUP, connect with Ability Wearables to bring real-time health intelligence to allow employers to reduce the risk of fatigue related incidents by predicting and monitoring the risk. Employees with a high risk of suffering from fatigue can be relocated to a less strenuous task as necessary. 

Challenges Associated with the use of Wearables in the Enterprise

COMMENTARY


Despite the clear advantages of the above use cases, and other applications of wearable technology in an enterprise setting, there are also challenges with deploying new technologies, particularly security issues and employee resistance. To help overcome the security issues, whereby unauthorized parties may gain access to employee or company information via the wearable devices, Reemo and SoloProtect are also integrating with Samsung SDS’s EMM solution to secure, manage, customize, and remotely control the devices. This helps to ensure that the devices are kept up to date, all information is kept secure, and the devices can be remotely wiped or locked if they are lost or stolen.

Employee resistance is harder to overcome, as employees are often concerned about the potential ramifications of using the devices, such as workers being disciplined or fired due to, for example, suffering from fatigue and needing to be relocated to a different task. Companies who deploy wearables for monitoring employees need to ensure that they communicate with their workers about what the information will be used for, with specific emphasis on the fact that it will not be used for disciplinary activity.

As these challenges are overcome, not just for Samsung’s solutions but for all enterprise wearable deployments, adoption of wearable devices will continue to grow. Enterprise wearable shipment numbers will rise at a CAGR of over 25% between 2017 and 2022, reaching over 117 million in 2022.

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