Health is one of the major concern for our day to day life and our smart devices now make it easy to track our fitness and vital signs within a fraction of seconds. Many tech giants are already trying to make their devices to track every health measurements, Apple made some vast investment into this track and Today Apple patented new health feature for iPhone.
The patent describes how the front-facing camera, light sensor and proximity sensor found in existing iPhone could be used for health measurements. You can track your heart beat from rear facing camera of iPhone but the front facing camera still won’t track anything.
New Patent work as it uses one or more of the camera and the proximity sensor to emit light into a body part of a user touching a surface of the electronic device and one or more of the camera, the ambient light sensor, and the proximity sensor to receive at least part of the emitted light reflected by the body part of the user. The electronic device computes health data of the user based upon sensor data regarding the received light.
It also considers using additional sensors mounted in the same area for further health measurements …This work similar to body fat measuring machine which measures weight and electrocardiogram of the user, while camera won’t measure your weight but it can capture ECG of the user, this feature already found in one of the cases of iPhone.
While this feature not only measure ECG as it can also measure blood pressure index, a blood hydration, a body fat content, an oxygen saturation, a pulse rate, a perfusion index, a photoplethysmograph (which can monitor breathing rate and detect circulatory conditions like hypovolemia), and/or any other such health data. While a developer can also build more use of this feature if Apple makes this feature available for other developers. As this feature looks so minimalistic than other medical equipment like Blood Pressure Machine or other, a light and camera can measure so many things is really amazing.
To measure all these Apple needs new material for lights as GAs (Gallium arsenide) which is non-imaging photodiode allow for detection for a larger spectrum of light which helps to capture all these health data pretty easily. An indium gallium arsenide non-imaging photodiode may not be typically used as an ambient light sensor as such may be more expensive than a silicon non-imaging photodiode that may adequately be used to determine ambient light conditions by detecting a more limited spectrum of light.
As this patent doesn’t show a sign to come soon as Apple made this feature available to recent gen. iPhone or will Apple use next gen. iPhone like upcoming iPhone 8. As all these health features are pretty amazing and no other brand still not offer all these results which Apple patented, Apple iPhones are still best health companion device as you can measure many things like Pulse Rate, Steps, Distance, Calories and much more. So it is amazing to see how Apple will bring all these features to next gen iPhone as we have no doubt about Apple keen interest in health.
