Samsungs Galaxy Watch 4 calculates body fat from the wrist

Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 4 has a feature that can calculate body fat percentage and muscle mass, the company announced yesterday. It’s the latest tech company to offer a body composition feature, joining Amazon, which has a body fat percentage feature in its Halo Band.

Body fat is generally a better way to assess health than weight, but it’s often calculated using a metric called the body mass index (BMI), which is crude and inaccurate. If wearables prove accurate, they could give people a better resource to monitor their health, Diana Thomas, a mathematician who studies body weight regulation at West Point, told The Verge in June.

The Galaxy measures body composition using a technique called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA),...

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