Samsung Electronics announced that the sleep apnea feature in the Samsung Health Monitor app has received De Novo approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This feature, which detects sleep apnea symptoms with the Samsung Galaxy Watch and Phone, was also approved by South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) last October.

The sleep apnea feature allows users over the age of 22 to detect symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) during two nights of monitoring for those not diagnosed with chronic sleep apnea, according to Samsung. To take advantage of this feature, users must track their sleep twice over a period of ten days, each for more than four hours. For those who don’t know, Obstructive sleep apnea causes a person to stop breathing during sleep and can often lead to interruptions in oxygen intake, poor sleep quality and daytime fatigue. Untreated sleep apnea can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, and stroke.
According to Samsung, the new feature, which will be included in the Samsung Health Monitor app, aims to enable more people to proactively detect symptoms of moderate or severe obstructive sleep apnea and seek medical help to reduce the likelihood of health complications arising from this detection.

Samsung, which is aware of the main role of sleep in our health, says that it focuses on three main elements for better sleep.
Note that the sleep apnea feature will be available on the Galaxy Watch series in the US through the Samsung Health Monitor app in the third quarter.