Heart Monitor is a simple and innovative iPhone health-related application that listens and detects your heart rate.
Developed by New Zealand-based developer called Bluespark, the app works via the built-in mic on the iPhone 3G (on the 2G version you need a headphone cable mic.) As pictured above, you can simply place on your chest, neck, or wrist and get a readout of your BPM. (Pecs not included.) It records your results so you can look at a comparison over time.
Heart monitor marks a new wave of mobile applications used for healthcare. Samsung in South Korea developed a mobile patient monitoring solution for hospitals that lets doctors and nurses keep tabs on patients’ conditions via their mobiles. DoCoMo in Japan has explored touch communications for use in healthcare. They recently developed a working prototype that actually uses the body to transmit information through touch, rather than via wired, wireless or optical communications. The technology is known as near-field intrabody communications and uses a tiny electronic field that exists on the surface of the body to conduct information to and from devices - such as a mobile phone - via the human body.
The Heart Monitor app is a simple step towards these more sophisticated solutions, and one that gives power to the individual. Mobile phones now come with pedometers, calorie counters, even breathalizers.
Next we’ll be able to seamlessly relay such information to doctors or trainers and have it tracked real-time. Or what about a linked heart monitor that measures the pulse of New York, for example?
Check out a demo of Heart Monitor here.
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1 Sunday Reading // Nov 2, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[...] You’re iPhone could save your life with this heart monitor application. [...]