MediaTek is probably best known for making the chip that power budget and mid-range smartphones from Chinese device makers (and a few Western companies). But the company’s latest product isn’t just a chip. It’s a module that can be embedded into smartphones to a range of user health data.
It’s called the MediaTek Sensio MT6381 and the company calls it a “6-in-1 smartphone biosensor module.”
Basically it’s a hardware and software solution that can track the following things:
- Heart rate
- Heart rate variability
- Blood pressure trends
- Peripheral Oxygen Saturation (SpO2)
- Electrocardiagraphy (electrical activity from your heart)
- Photoplethysmography (changes in blood volume)
You’ll need to hold your finger to a light-sensitive sensor on your phone for about 60 seconds to measure all of those things, so this isn’t the same kind of passive monitoring you might get from a wearable solution. And it’s not entirely clear how much demand there is for this sort of module in a smartphone. But it does show that MediaTek is thinking beyond the CPU.
The MediaTek Sensio MT6381 module measures about 6.8mm x 4.9mm x 1.mm and includes red and infrared LED lights and a light sensor that measures absorption of light from those LEDs.
It’s expected to be available in early 2018.
Western phones? What western phones?
Can’t wait for my MediaTek STI scanner on my Xiaomi Mi 14 : )