Both functions rely on the smartphone camera. Respiration rate will be measured by tracking the rise and fall of the user’s chest, and heart rate will be measured by tracking the color change as the blood moves along the fingertip. The user will need to use the device’s front camera to track their respiration rate. The person’s head and chest must be visible.

To measure the heart rate, the user will need to place their finger in front of the main camera located on the back of the device.

According to Google, these features are only intended to enable users to track their overall well-being and are not intended to diagnose diseases. The company decided to incorporate these features into smartphones to make them accessible to the widest possible range of people.

“Many people, especially those from the low-income segments of the population, now do not have such things as wearable devices, but they would still benefit from the ability to track their breathing and heart rate,” the company notes.

The idea of ​​measuring heart rate using a smartphone is not new. For example, the ability to read the heart rate was present even in older Samsung models before the Galaxy S10. With the release of the Galaxy S10E, Galaxy S20, and subsequent smartphones, the manufacturer decided to remove this feature from the device.