Believe it or not… Cardiio, our iPhone app of the week, will actually measure your heart rate accurately by scanning your face using the front-facing camera of your iPhone/iPad!
When the iPhone rendered the stethoscope obsolete…
So, an iPhone app that claims to be a stethoscope. Is it possible that the iPhone’s futuristic technology has now even rendered one of medicine’s most trusted and recognizable tools obsolete? Well Cardiio is at least trying, and it’s doing it rather beautifully!
The key is in the iPhone’s front-facing camera. It turns out that every time your heart beats, more blood is pumped into your face; this slight increase in blood volume causes more light to be absorbed, and hence less light is reflected from your face. The iPhone front-camera’s sophisticated software can track these tiny changes in reflected light (invisible to the human eye) and calculate your heart beat!
Sound too good to be true? Well that’s modern technology for you! We’ve tried it out here at All My Faves, and can tell you that Cardiio appears to work. And it’s fun to use and lovely to look at too.
So not only do you get the top tech from MIT’s Media Lab geeks, but you also get some iPhone sheen to help you track your fitness level. Fancy yourself as an amateur doctor? Try Cardiio and see for yourself!
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