Heart rate is one of the important factors that the doctor considers while checking for any disease as according to them a person could avoid any health problems if his heart rate is good. There are devices available that could help people measure their heart rate on regular basis sitting at their home.
On a similar note, Microsoft has developed and patented heart rate monitoring device that adds the additional feature to the traditional heart rate monitoring device. According to Microsoft, this wearable device will make the job of people easier by providing them much detailed information about their heart rate.
Why this technology?
The need for regular heart rate monitoring arises from the fact that there are many diseases that are caused by the abnormal heart rate. Doctors also advise people to keep a check on their heart rate as they could avoid many diseases if they have the good heart rate. But, regular heart rate check is a headache to the people who have the busy life.
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There are many people that are busy most of the time. So, for these people, there are many wearables developed that help them to keep the check on the heart rate. But, the traditional wearable device only gives the information about the heart rate.
But, the device developed by Microsoft offers many advantages over the traditional wearable device. Microsoft’s wearable device is easy to wear and it does not offer any comfort while working out. So, this is a good device for people who work out regularly. Also, there are many additional features in this device.
The wearable electronic devices measure the heart rate of the person who wears it. However, the traditional techniques for heart rate measurement are susceptible to signal degradation which decreases the accuracy of the measured heart rate.
For example, during any activity like exercise, playing any kind of sports, the measured heart rate signal may degrade by a motion of the heart rate monitoring device or by other sources of signal noise.
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How does this device work?
The wearable heart rate monitoring device includes an optical sensor which is configured to translate test light reflected from a wearer of the device into a machine-readable heart rate signal. The heart rate monitoring device also includes an elevation sensor which is configured to translate an elevation of the heart rate monitoring device into a machine-readable elevation signal.
The device also includes a heart rate reporting machine which is configured to give the output of the estimated heart rate based on machine-readable heart rate signal and the machine-readable elevation signal.
The device also provides a technique for correcting a heart rate signal based on a perceived strenuousness of an activity performed by the wearer. In this process, the heart rate is estimated using a first heart rate estimation approach.
The first heart rate estimation approach includes the motion-correcting and machine-readable heart rate signal. It evaluates the crossings of a z-axis to estimate the heart rate. The mean heart rate could be calculated by the series of estimated heart rates. Then, a machine-readable activity-strain signal is used to evaluate the relative strenuousness of the activity which the wearer is currently performing.
If the candidate’s heart rate is found to be consistent with the machine-readable activity-strain signal the output is displayed on the screen.But, if the first candidate’s heart rate is not found consistent with the activity-strain signal, the second estimation approach is used to estimate the candidate’s heart rate which is then displayed on the screen.
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The second estimation approach includes identifying the highest occurrence frequency in a frequency search window of a frequency domain representation of the machine-readable heart rate signal. The frequency search window is created on the basis of previously calculated mean heart rate.
What’s next?
The next thing for Microsoft will be to implement this technology in the real life scenario. Microsoft will face a lot of competition from other companies that are producing the similar product.
Now, it depends on the customer which device he or she prefers but certainly, Microsoft has created a good product that could help a large number of people.
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