Google steps up health monitoring with ‘pulse loss detection’
Google is honing its Health feature to detect more than just everyday health issues and irregular heartbeats. At the company’s Made by Google event on Tuesday, it announced Loss of Pulse Detection, a new feature for Pixel watch 3 which can sense when the wearer is experiencing a loss of heartbeat.
Having a weak or lost pulse is a potentially fatal medical emergency that indicates the heart is not beating and pumping blood properly. It is caused by cardiac arrest, poisoning, drug overdose, or other events. If the Pixel Watch 3 detects a loss of heart rate in the person wearing it, Google says you’ll get an alert with a timer to respond.
If you do not respond, an automated voice message with your location will be sent to emergency services.
“We know that these events often go unnoticed, so no one can help or make a decision on their behalf,” Dr. Jake Sunshine, a researcher who worked on the new feature, told CNET. “That was the problem we were trying to solve with this feature.”
If you don’t respond to the notification your Pixel Watch sends you after detecting a loss of heart rate, the device will send an automated message to alert emergency services.
The algorithm is designed to detect the loss of heartbeat within a minute. The notification of a heartbeat loss takes about 15 seconds. The algorithm continues to look for signs of heartbeat or movement.
The company is careful to say that Loss of Pulse Detection isn’t built for one specific event or health condition; the classification and alert that follows are powered by machine learning and rely on sensors on the Pixel Watch 3, including heart rate monitoring. But Loss of Pulse Detection is a feature that could catch rarer but very serious health events. And it also touches on broader, public health issues, like rising rates of opioid overdosesbecause an untreated drug overdose is one type of catalyst for a loss of pulse.
Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist at National Jewish Health, said the new smartwatch feature appears to be aimed at “outside the hospital“cardiac arrest, which is a “major killer” because it requires immediate attention. While “the devil is in the details” as to how it will actually work to help people (and of course it depends on people actually wearing the Pixel Watch 3), anything that provides emergency care to a person with lost or impaired wrist activity could save a life.
“Anything that can eliminate the need for these very deadly, high-risk issues is astonishing,” Freeman said.
While other wearables, including some Google products and Apple Watch, fall detection and other safety features, Loss of Pulse Detection on Pixel Watch 3 will be the first of its kind. It will be available with the launch of Pixel Watch 3 in select European countries, including the UK, Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Google has not yet provided information on when and how the Food and Drug Administration would greenlight the loss of the pulse feature, which would be required for use in the US.
In building Loss of Pulse Detection, Google said it consulted with emergency medical services, dispatchers and other groups that would have insight into how to respond to a loss of pulse event. The company also weighed the absolutely critical element of time in loss of pulse events against the risk of sending false alerts, said Florence Thng, Google’s health product manager. And, she added, it’s important to leave room for error.
“No feature is perfect,” Thng said. “We built this very thoughtfully, but even with AI, we know Loss of Pulse isn’t going to catch every event.”
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