A major area of focus for connected wearable smart devices is health-tracking, there are countless fitness bands already available in the market that allow users to keep an eye on their vital signs. Even smartwatches have these features built into them and we have seen smartphones with heart rate sensors as well. It’s an up and coming market, and it appears that Google wants a big piece of it for itself.
According to a new report by Bloomberg the Mountain View company is developing a new medical-grade health-tracking wristband which is not only going to monitor vital signs such as pulse, heart rate and skin temperature on a “minute-by-minute” basis but also track external factors such as sun exposure.
Google X is said to be behind this project, the secretive lab has been involved in many products that include Google’s autonomous cars, Project Loon and even Google Glass.
Here’s the interesting thing though, the report claims that Google isn’t going to sell this wristband in the market. Instead it’s going to limit the use to clinical trials and see that it’s prescribed to medical patients.
This will solve a major problem that doctors face with tracking the health of patients when they’re not in the hospital. Commercially available health-tracking wristbands don’t provide medical-grade information so they’re not exactly that useful to medical professionals.
Trials for the test bands are expected to start over the summer.
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