After studying 2 lakh users, Fitbit smartwatches will get new features, now will also give fever and cold alert
The Fitbit smartwatch will now alert the user even if there is fever (flu) or cold (influenza). American researchers studied for the first time to improve surveillance of the disease spread by infection. Researchers said they were successful in getting real-time flu information in five states. For this, heart rate and sleep data of Fitbit users were used. There is a constant change in heart rate when there is flu. These changes in heart rate are tracked by wearable devices such as smartwatches and fitness bands, and confirm a fever or a cold.
Every year 20% of children become infected with infected fever.
- Due to cold (influenza), around 6.50 lakh people die annually. Every year about 7% of working adults and 20% of children (under 5 years of age) get infected.
- The study author of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Dr. Jennifer Raidin, said that by early detection of the flu, it can be prevented from spreading further and infecting others. So we were curious to see if it could be identified in real-time with the help of sensors.
- Researchers studied data from over 2 lakh users using the Fitbit wearable device. Through this device, data of about 60 days of heart rate, sleep and other activities of users were tracked.
- Of these 2 lakh users, about 47,248 users were residents of California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, who used the Fitbit device continuously during the study period. Their average age was 43 years, which included 60 percent of women.
- Reddin said that by further improving the capabilities of wearable devices in the future, accessing data in 24/7 real-time can identify the rate of infection every day.
- He further said that this is the first time that other diseases, including flu, are being identified in real-time through heart rate and sleep data. However, during this study, researchers also faced a lot of problems because the heart rate becomes irregular even during depression or other infections.
