Google is developing a band that will track your health stats and send the data directly to your doctor.
As reported by Bloomberg Business, “the experimental device, developed within the company’s Google X research division, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like light exposure and noise levels.”
Google does not plan to market this directly to consumers, competing with Fitbit and Apple Watch. Instead, the band is intended for health providers to use with patients or in clinical studies, a Google rep told Bloomberg.
Why a device? Well, as any health professional might tell you, people are not always forthcoming about their real behaviors, following recommendations and/or other daily things doctors tell them they should do. The health bands will provide data to physicians and researchers about what is really going on in the patient’s body. Eventually, they also see it as becoming a preventative tool to detect problems earlier on in healthy people, too.
If you remember, Google X developed a contact lens that can detect blood sugar levels in diabetics, a project that started at the University of Washington with research support from Microsoft, as we reported in January 2014.
The band is set for testing this summer.
