{"id":1197444,"date":"2023-10-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1197444"},"modified":"2023-10-28T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T13:00:00","slug":"google-can-turn-anc-earbuds-into-a-heart-rate-monitor-with-no-extra-hardware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1197444","title":{"rendered":"Google Can Turn ANC Earbuds Into a Heart Rate Monitor With No Extra Hardware"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Abner Li reports via 9to5Google: Google today detailed its research into audioplethysmography (APG) that adds heart rate sensing capabilities to active noise canceling (ANC) headphones and earbuds &#8220;with a simple software upgrade.&#8221; Google says the &#8220;ear canal [is] an ideal location for health sensing&#8221; given that the deep ear artery &#8220;forms an intricate network of smaller vessels that extensively permeate the auditory canal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This audioplethysmography approach works by &#8220;sending a low intensity ultrasound probing signal through an ANC headphone&#8217;s speakers. This signal triggers echoes, which are received via on-board feedback microphones. We observe that the tiny ear canal skin displacement and heartbeat vibrations modulate these ultrasound echoes.&#8221; A model that Google created works to process that feedback into a heart rate reading, as well as heart rate variability (HRV) measurement. This technique works even with music playing and &#8220;bad earbuds seals.&#8221; However, it was impacted by body motion, and Google countered with a multi-tone approach that serves as a calibration tool to &#8220;find the best frequency that measures heart rate, and use only the best frequency to get high-quality pulse waveform.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Google performed two sets of studies with 153 people that found APG &#8220;achieves consistently accurate heart rate (3.21% median error across participants in all activity scenarios) and heart rate variability (2.70% median error in inter-beat interval) measurements.&#8221; Compared to existing HR sensors, it&#8217;s not impacted by skin tones. Ear canal size and &#8220;sub-optimal seal conditions&#8221; also do not impact accuracy. Google believes this is a better approach than putting traditional photoplethysmograms (PPG) and electrocardiograms (ECG) sensors, as well as a microcontroller, in headphones\/earbuds: &#8220;this sensor mounting paradigm inevitably adds cost, weight, power consumption, acoustic design complexity, and form factor challenges to hearables, constituting a strong barrier to its wide adoption.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<div class=\"share_submission\" style=\"position:relative\">\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=Google+Can+Turn+ANC+Earbuds+Into+a+Heart+Rate+Monitor+With+No+Extra+Hardware%3A+https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F23%2F10%2F28%2F0649257%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/twitter_icon_large-1081.png\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F23%2F10%2F28%2F0649257%2Fgoogle-can-turn-anc-earbuds-into-a-heart-rate-monitor-with-no-extra-hardware%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/facebook_icon_large-540.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tech.slashdot.org\/story\/23\/10\/28\/0649257\/google-can-turn-anc-earbuds-into-a-heart-rate-monitor-with-no-extra-hardware?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed\">Read more of this story<\/a> at Slashdot.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Slashdot &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.slashdot.org\/story\/23\/10\/28\/0649257\/google-can-turn-anc-earbuds-into-a-heart-rate-monitor-with-no-extra-hardware?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&amp;utm_medium=feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Can Turn ANC Earbuds Into a Heart Rate Monitor With No Extra Hardware<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abner Li reports via 9to5Google: Google today detailed its research into audioplethysmography (APG) that adds heart rate sensing capabilities to active noise canceling (ANC) headphones and earbuds &#8220;with a simple software upgrade.&#8221; Google says the &#8220;ear canal [is] an ideal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1197444\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1197445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,110],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-1197444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slashdot","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-slashdot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1197444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1197445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1197444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1197444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1197444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}