Heena Sharma Blog

Smartwatches can recognise a range of hand motions and identify what the wearer is doing, scientists have found, paving the way for novel health-related apps that could monitor activities such as brushing teeth or smoking a cigarette. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the US have used a standard smartwatch to figure out when a wearer was typing on a keyboard, washing dishes, petting a dog, pouring from a pitcher or cutting with scissors. By making a few changes to the watch's operating system, they were able to use its accelerometer to recognise hand motions and, in some cases, bio-acoustic sounds associated with 25 different hand activities at around 95 per cent accuracy. Those 25 activities are just the beginning of what might be possible to detect. "We envision smartwatches as a unique beachhead on the body for capturing rich, everyday activities," said Chris Harrison, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon. "A wide variety of apps could...

The heart rate monitor built into the new Apple Watch has sparked sharp debate over its risks and benefits, even though the feature was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. But out of the spotlight, the FDA has been doing away with regulatory action altogether on many diagnostic health apps targeting consumers, seeking to accelerate digital health adoption by defining many of these as “low risk” medical devices. As the number of mobile health apps surged to a record 325,000 in 2017, app performance is going largely unpoliced, leading to what’s been dubbed a “Wild West” situation. Unfortunately for health consumers, the public can’t rely on the research community to play the role of sheriff. When colleagues and I recently examined the medical literature on direct-to-consumer diagnostic apps in a study published in Diagnosis, we repeatedly found studies marred by bias, technological naïveté or a failure to provide crucial information for consumers. There was al...