Google has announced the Pixel Watch 3’s potentially life-saving Loss of Pulse Detection feature has received clearance for launch in the United States.
The feature, which will automatically make a call to the emergency services in the event your heart stops beating, was announced alongside the Pixel Watch 3 in August last year. The idea is to get help to those who are alone and otherwise wouldn’t have a chance of receiving resuscitation.
However, while European users including those in the UK have been making use of this health aid since last year, Americans have had to wait a while before clearance by the Food and Drug Administration.
That’s now happened and the feature will finally roll out the end of March.
“This first-of-its-kind feature can detect when you’ve experienced a loss of pulse (your heart stops beating from an event like primary cardiac arrest, respiratory or circulatory failure, overdose or poisoning) and automatically prompt a call to emergency services for potentially life-saving care if you’re unresponsive,” Google writes in a blog post.
Back in August, Google said the feature works by combining data from three of the watch’s three sensors as well as AI and digital signal processing technologies.
Google says the heart rate sensor, which uses a green light, is the first port of call, while infrared and red lights will also look for the pulse. The motion sensor then checks for movement. From there, AI triggers a check-in to ensure the user is OK. A lack of response triggers a countdown to call for the ambulance, sharing your location.
Testing even involved working with stunt actors to induce pulselessness in real world settings. “The actors wore tourniquets to artificially induce pulselessness, and then simulated the types of falls that would mimic a person suddenly losing their pulse,” Google said at the time.
Loss of Pulse Detection joins other health and safety features like Car Crash Detection, Fall Detection, Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications and the ECG app and Safety Check.
Life savers > Life aiders?
Smartwatches are increasingly being billed as lifesaving devices. That’s one way to make them feel more essential. While most wearers love tools like workout, sleep and stress tracking, the idea that a watch can save your life if disaster strikes is certainly appealing.
