Google Launches Smartwatch Pact With MedTech Firm Masimo

After tangling in court with Apple over smartwatch features, medical technology company Masimo is teaming with Google.

The company announced in a news release Saturday (Sept. 14) that it was working with Google to develop a new reference platform for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) building the tech giant’s Wear OS smartwatches.

The platform, the company said, will allow OEMs to more efficiently bring Wear watches to market, incorporating Masimo’s biosensing technologies and standardizing smartwatch devices. The platform is designed to support the Wear OS ecosystem, the company added, which includes health and wellness tracking tools.

“Building quality smartwatches with premium features that users have come to expect can be time consuming and costly,” said Bjorn Kilburn, general manager of Wear OS for Google.

“With Masimo’s reference platform, smartwatch makers are able to benefit from state-of-the-art biosensing technology and quickly bring their Wear OS devices to market, at scale.”

According to the release, OEMs who adopt the new Masimo platform, which is expected to be compatible with Google apps and services designed for the Wear OS platform, “will continue to design and produce their new smartwatches’ physical exteriors and have creative control over the appearance of the user interface.”

Masimo had sued Apple in 2020, claiming the company had stolen trade secrets related to its health monitoring technology. Last October, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Apple’s watch violates Masimo’s patent, setting up a potential ban on the device.

Earlier this year, Apple removed a blood oxygen feature from two of its Apple Watch versions, allowing sales in the U.S. to proceed.

And in other news from the intersection of wearable devices and health, Google last month teamed with Peloton on a multi-year, multi-country collaboration to promote their fitness-oriented offerings to each other’s customers.

The convergence of technology and fitness, illustrated by the rise of wearable devices that aggregate a range of fitness data sources, has become a trend in the post-COVID landscape, PYMNTS reported in May.

Younger consumers are particularly likely to adopt healthcare-related wearables, according to the March 2023 edition of PYMNTS Intelligence’s “The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Evolving Digital Daily.”

That report found that 30% of Gen Z respondents use wearable technology that gathers health information on a daily basis, along with 27% of millennials.