Nokia steps into digital health sector with smart hairbrush
Some technology companies are destined to be forever associated with one moment, be it a spectacular flop, like the Sinclair C5, or an innovation that changed the world, like Sony's Walkman. For Nokia, associations with the first flowering of the mass market in mobile phones are proving hard to shake.
Since the humbled Finnish giant sold its mobile phone division to Microsoft in 2013 for $US7.2 billion it has been focused on behind-the-scenes technology, including broadband, network infrastructure and maps. Now, however, it is attempting a comeback as a consumer brand.
The Hair Coach is fitted with a microphone that 'listens' for dryness, and sensors that analyse brushing and hair quality.
Last year it paid €170 million ($241 million) for Withings, a French digital health startup founded in 2008 which makes internet-connected thermometers, heart rate and blood pressure monitors and weighing scales. It is also known for fitness trackers, baby monitors and a new home security system.
After the deal, Withings chief executive, Cedric Hutchings, took charge of Nokia's dedicated health tech department, which has offices in San Francisco and Finland.
The Withings smart temporal thermometer.
Its first product of the year launched a new category for Nokia: beauty tech. The company unveiled a "smart hairbrush", a first for the digital health industry, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, to a mixed reception.
"People's first reaction has been, 'Do we really need a smart hairbrush?'" says Hutchings, standing at the Withings booth at CES. "But after showing them how it works and explaining the science behind it, we've had a super-positive response. It's a product that will appeal to people who are interested in their hair quality and beauty, no question."
The hairbrush, called the Hair Coach, is fitted with a microphone that "listens" for dryness, and sensors that analyse brushing and hair quality. It sends the data to a smartphone app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, which then makes recommendations about brushing technique and new products to try.
A $US200 hairbrush might appear to be an odd choice for a health business, even if it is a "world first". But the brush is part of a plan to enhance everyday products to build an accurate picture of users' health without them really noticing. "At Withings we've always been interested in routine and home environment. Our products are about generating new insights without having to change the routine," Hutchings says. "We came from a start-up segment into, now, a very large-scale, large-volume business."
Industry excitement over products like Withings' is clear, with scores of companies competing to make more accurate sensors and wearables. Consumer interest in wearables and health monitoring has proven difficult to sustain, however, raising questions over Nokia's gadget-led plans. Even Apple has struggled with its smartwatch.
Laura Craft, research director at the IT research firm Gartner, says: "The healthcare market is huge, and wearables are important. But I wonder whether the consumer-driven side will manage to sustain itself compared with the ability to use these products for better care and monitoring."
Instead, Craft says: "They have wonderful potential if we can bring them into medical care. We have a global shortage of primary health care professionals who end up seeing patients they don't need to who are perfectly healthy. There's a real opportunity to solve the health crisis with these technologies."
Nokia has plans to do just that. Although its acquisition of Withings was hailed as a return to the consumer market, the former phone maker's ambitions extend much further than a range of new medical wearables and devices. "We will keep on building on our very advanced sensors and analysis of consumer vitals hidden in everyday devices," Hutchings says.
"But on another side we are looking at artificial intelligence and analytics, the ability to generate insight out of the capacity to analyse data on totally new scales. Both ends are really where Nokia can play."
Hutchings is hoping to create a system that can collect patient data from its range of sensors and analyse it for any changes or abnormalities. When these occur it can then alert medical professionals.
Nokia has already been working with healthcare providers in the US and Finland to place its products into clinical settings. It also has more than 40 partnerships with universities and medical research institutes, including Stanford University, the University of Manchester and the Quantified Self Institute in the Netherlands, where its work includes remote monitoring for chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, as well as preventing secondary incidents in patients who have had a stroke.
It is an ambitious project but Hutchings says it is going well so far, and he expects some of Withings' technology pilots will be used in clinical settings this year.
Gartner estimates that 20 per cent of the population with chronic conditions will rely on virtual health assistants and personal monitoring by 2022, with these technologies being more reliable than human monitors.
Nokia faces strong competition. Google's DeepMind is pioneering machine learning medical data analysis, and the UK's NHS has already teamed up with sensor experts such as McLaren to trial remote patient monitoring.
Hutchings is confident the Nokia brand remains strong enough for the company to lead digital healthcare development and adoption. "It's been energising for the team and it's been going well," he says. "It's a big challenge but all of the team is very busy on building the next steps."
The comeback starts with a smart hairbrush.
The Telegraph, London