Google Research has developed a technology to measure your pulse using a smartphone – without a smartwatch or sensors. It uses the smartphone’s front camera and, according to a study published in Nature, delivers results comparable to wearables.
Wearables such as smartwatches, smart headphones or fitness trackers have developed from a niche to a mass product in recent years. Millions of people no longer only use the devices to count their steps or record sports sessions every day, but increasingly also to monitor health or sleep data.
The popularity is also reflected in the sales figures. According to estimates, shipments in the wearables market will exceed 600 million units this year. By 2029, the number could even rise to around 656 million units.
A key reason for the devices’ popularity is their health functions. Modern wearables can record a variety of physical parameters.
The most frequently recorded values include heart rate (HR) and resting heart rate (RHR). These values are comparatively easy to record and can provide information about physical fitness, stress in everyday life or possible health changes.
Pulse measurement via smartphone camera: This is how the new Google method works
Researchers at Google Research have now developed an approach that aims to make heart rate measurement even easier – without a smartwatch, sensors or fitness tracker. In one in the specialist journal Nature In the published study, they describe a technology that can use the front camera of a smartphone to record the heart rate and derive the resting heart rate from it.
Smartphones are now one of the most widely used technical devices in the world. While around 4.3 billion people still used a smartphone in 2024, this number is forecast to increase to around 6.2 billion users by 2030.
The enormous spread makes smartphones increasingly interesting for applications in the health sector. This is because they potentially reach a large portion of the world’s population and can continuously collect data when used regularly.
This is exactly where the study from Google Research comes into play. The researchers want to make HR measurement via smartphone accessible to groups of people who live in resource-poor environments or who are at high risk of cardiovascular diseases.
In their work “Passive Heart Rate Monitoring During Smartphone Use in Everyday Life” (PHRM), the researchers present the technology that enables the detection of HR and RHF in the background during everyday smartphone use.
PHRM uses the device’s front camera to take video recordings of the user’s face via facial recognition in the seconds after unlocking. An AI then estimates heart rate using deep learning and can estimate a daily resting heart rate using the HR measurements throughout the day.
Less than 5 beats deviation: That’s how accurate the method is
PHRM technology measures heart rate using photoplethysmography. Light fluctuations are captured in eight-second video clips of the face, which are created when blood pulsates through the skin.
The Google researchers claim that their technology achieves an accuracy that corresponds to that of wearables. The deviations are less than five beats per minute compared to a wearable tracker.
To develop it, researchers at Google Research used more than 350,000 video clips from almost 700 study participants with different skin types. The images were taken both in the laboratory and under everyday conditions.
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