Connected health: we visited the incredible research center of Huawei

Huawei became known to the general public by his smartphones, a market on which he is now much less present in the West, for lack of Pouvoire to exploit Google services. The brand focuses on the connected health sector, which is the subject of significant investments. Connected watches, heart rate sensors, accessory for measuring its stride: everything is designed to analyze its sports performance.

An extraordinary connected health R&D center

In China, Huawei's R&D (Research and Development). Quite simply disproportionate, the site is similar to city in the city, so that almost all 20,000 employees live on the spot. There is then everything: supermarket, coffees, library, etc. In all, it is 1.4 km² dedicated to research at Huawei – 196 football fields.

Among the different sectors, the Department of Connected Health is very well off. Corrected with the Chinese Ministry of Health, a center brings together different sports disciplines in order to test the watches, sensors and connected accessories. Each day, engineers and volunteers go to these unusual offices to play sports, analyze the data collected by equipment or study new protocols.

Each sport is its specialist

Here, each his domain. Engineers specialize in a discipline, which they practice and analyze. Their goal: “Improve the measures provided by Huawei equipment”entrusts us with the center manager. To do this, they obviously go through project management box, with the development of research studies on new sports.

In the laboratory, they then determine the essential factors to take into account in the practice of discipline. They also try to find new protocols and improve algorithms. Outside the laboratories, engineers practice their predilection sport to determine the measures to be developed – and this practice can be done both at the center and outside, in real conditions.

Pancho specializes in cycling. “I’m cycling for my pleasure, but also on my working hours”tells us the timid triathlete. He then went to the Dongguan R&D center to reach his office upstairs or to pedal.

On the bike, he equips himself with his watch. In front of him, a television. It displays all the data necessary for the analysis of a session, such as the distance traveled, its speed, the elevation or the heart rate. It can also adjust the bicycle so that it pedal at a defined pace. “I can myself do a bicycle session, and then analyze my results, but I also manage to supervise volunteers.” The latter are independent of Huawei and then come to do a sports session, like any other training.

Precise analysis tools for ever more data

At the Dongguan R&D center, each discipline has its own space. At the entrance, it is swimming which opens the ball and which impresses with its basin reproducing the real swimming conditions. The engineers regulate the power of the current, control the temperature of the water (5 ° C to 45 ° C), reproduce waves, the swimming conditions in the open sea or that in fresh water, according to the desired scenario. Everything is adjustable. The swimmer or the swimmer then comes into play, watch connected to the wrist.

Thanks to cameras placed in the basin and analysis software, different data is collected. Huawei engineers dissect the sportsmen's movements, its posture, its heart rate, the angle of your arms, the line of its legs, etc. In short, everything goes there.

It's simple: Huawei tries to always bring more details in his analyzes. Concretely, this means new disciplines available on watches or new measures taken into account.

The badminton, for example, is one of the sports on which Huawei Plate. Not available in France, connected accessories analyze players' movements – they settle in ankle or hip. To improve their performance, 28 cameras crisscross the field and examine the steering wheel trajectory, its speed, but also the player's posture. The accessories will then be able to give advice on the movement of the arm to adopt or on the position of the body to be promoted.

Fashionable discipline, the Golf section is also entitled to its share of technologies. Placed in front of a large screen, the player grabs his club and continues the swings. A noise sounds. Right in the thousand. The ball landed in the screen and a multitude of data are extracted. Here also cameras analyze the gesture and posture of the player. A radar records the motion speed of the club.

Above all, a GPS sensor reproduces the trajectory of the ball on the screen, as well as its speed and the distance traveled. Clearly, the conditions for a real golf course are reproduced in this center. Thanks to the 15,000 cartographies recorded by Huawei around the world, the GPS can even determine if the ball landed in the green or rough, for example.

As soon as we entered this center, we quickly understood it. Huawei wants to make connected health one of its major development axes, with watches as spearheads. Impressive by its size, its technologies, its research methods or its expertise, the place clearly displays the will of the Chinese manufacturer: always do better. It remains to benefit the French market for Chinese exclusives, such as the Huawei Tag to even better integrate the watches and activity sensors Huawei, too often restrained by their low compatibility with third -party brands.