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Samsung (News - Alert) recently revealed its Samsung Digital Health Initiative, an open hardware and open software platform the company envisions as the starting point for consumers to use technology to monitor and track their health.

The Samsung Digital Health Initiative was launched to foster development of new products while helping people take charge of their health.  The open platform in a wearable wristband could be used to track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure. It does not provide mobile alerts or voice commands to users but it serves as a nerve center that will collect and analyze data points and eventually provide insight.

Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics, said in a statement, “Samsung’s Digital Health Initiative provides an exciting opportunity for the brightest minds in the technology world to come together to develop the products that will, for the first time, put individuals in the driver’s seat in understanding their own health and wellness.”

There are two major components to the SDHI: hardware and software. The open hardware platform, called the Simband, is a reference design for developers. It won't be sold to consumers; rather, it is meant to serve as a platform that developers can use to create and test their apps.

The company hopes that Simband will let developers and hardware makers see the potential behind the initiative and go on to create their own products based on the open technologies therein.

Samsung is also offering the Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) platform, open, cloud-based software that can pull in and analyze data from the Simband. It will allow devices and sensors to securely store data in the cloud regardless of the source’s format or structure.