Coronavirus: Samsung's Bengaluru R&D team brings hand hygiene alert app

Novel Coronavirus pandemic has caused several thousands of deaths around the world; while the health experts and scientists work on the COVID-19 vaccine, the general public has been asked to maintain a social distance between friends and office colleagues by staying at home and most importantly focus on personal hygiene in terms of washing hands are regular intervals.

As per the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, people should wash hands for a full 20 seconds to be safe from getting ill.

Now, Samsung has come up with a creative application that alerts the Galaxy Watch users to wash hands and also sets a timer with a minimum of 25 seconds, to fully wash the hands.

"A small group of designers and developers from Samsung Research Institute-Bangalore, or SRI-B’s UX and wearable teams, worked round-the-clock over the last two weeks to come up with a solution that helps you keep healthy and safe," the company said in a statement.

Each time the user initiates the wash sequence, the ‘Hand Wash’ app tracks the time and provides users with haptic feedback after 25 seconds of the wash cycle. Five seconds are for turning on the tap and applying soap, while 20 seconds are for actual hand wash.

Customers can also schedule reminder timings and also get to view daily hand wash tracker counter so that he/she can know how many times they cleaned their hands.

Also, The ‘Hand Wash’ app notifies users if they miss any of scheduled pit stops to the washbasin. It also has an intuitive watch face, which shows the elapsed time since the last wash to give users a sense of alertness about their hygiene in real-time.

With this, Samsung Galaxy Watch owners will be able to develop discipline with a focus on personal hygiene over time.

The new ‘Hand Wash’ app can be downloaded from the Galaxy Store.

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