You’ll soon be able to check your heart rate and respiratory rate on Pixel phones

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Health and fitness applications continue to find their way into our tech devices and the latest example of that is from Google. The company is getting ready to roll out new features to Pixel phones, with plans to bring it to more Android phones in the future.

Essentially, Google plans on using the Pixel’s cameras to measure and monitor your heart rate and respiratory rate through the Fit app. For respiratory rate, uses will need to prop up their phone and use the front-facing camera to put their head and chest into the shot. The app will then measure the rise and fall of the user’s chest to give a reading.

For heart rate, users will literally place their finger on the rear-facing camera and the app will monitor color-changes in the finger to give a heart rate reading.

During the press briefing, and reported on by The Verge, Jiening Zhan, a technical lead at Google Health, notes that the respiratory feature is accurate within one breath per minute and heart rate within 2 percent.

Of course, these types of readings from your Pixel phones will not be as accurate as an actual doctor’s appointment or readings from a fitness band, but it can still be a handy feature for getting a gauge of your health, especially if you are actively trying to improve your health.

Have any thoughts on this? Would you use this feature? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• If you own an older Pixel phone, you can now use the new Pixel 5 camera app
• Robinhood is back down to a one-star rating on the Google Play Store
• Millions of Ford vehicles will implement Android Auto starting in 2023
• Apple’s upcoming VR/AR headset could set you back a staggering $3,000