Saturday, June 09, 2012

App of the Month

I'd normally say I'm all about health and wellness, but you know my proclivity for cupcakes, cookies, ice cream and booze. On the other hand, I do like salad.  

It all evens out - no?

But for fun, many of my iPhone apps are healthcare related, be it a way to log my exercise routine, access to my personal health record or a food tracker that' supposed to help me lose weight.  Clearly that last one is a flawed app. 

But one of my newer (and free) apps is the Instant Heart Rate Monitor.  Yes, the one that I linked to is the whopping sum of $0.99, there is (or at least, was) a free version. I pay enough for my healthcare, I'm not putting down another cent, if I don't have to. 

In theory, the app is simple. You launch it and it turns on your iPhone camera light (yes, you'll need a 4 of 4S for this to work). You then press your finger against the camera lens and it will read your pulse. 

Trouble was, if I pressed too hard, I flat-lined and there was no heart rate and I got no result. Other times, I'd get a resting heart rate of 177.  Yikes. 

Turns out, you can't press hard at all. So when it works, it works. 


70 seems much more normal. 


Like my personality, my heart rate is 'average'. On the lower end of average, but middle of the road no matter how you look at it. 


The app will also remind you when to take your heart rate again. It also stores the data of each time you complete it. This is great for hypertensive folks to see what kind of progress they are, or are not, making. I've done it three times (not all reminders - some just on my own).  

As you can see, I'm fairly consistent with where my heart rate is. 


More importantly - it kind of proves I have a heart. 

2 comments:

Erik Rubright said...

Hmm... I wonder what the actual accuracy is via the flash/camera.

Ur-spo said...

that is impressive.