Monitoring you heart rate can be a pain, especially for those who have to do so frequently for health purposes. But a new mobile app aims to make this sometimes tedious task not only simple but enjoyable. What some may view as a game, Cardiio makers view as a pivotal health tool that measures your heart rate by simply taking a visual scan of your face.
That’s right: Cardiio users simply hold their iPhone or iPad up to their face, the app does a quick scan, and then your heart rate, projected life expectancy, and how you compare health-wise to the average person is revealed.
We reached out to Cardiio co-founder and CEO, Ming-Zher Poh, Ph.D., to get a better idea of what this cool, new app is really all about.
What does this app do, and how exactly does it work?
Cardiio is a beautiful and fun app that accurately measures your pulse by scanning your face using the front-facing camera of your iPhone/iPad. 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 off your face. With Cardiio, your device’s front camera can track these tiny changes in reflected light that are not visible to the human eye to calculate your heart rate. (more…)
