The same company that gave us Google Glass is now working on another kind of wearable: a health tracker.
Google has developed a wristwatch-like device that can track your pulse, activity level, heart rate and skin temperature. The big difference between this new device and the company's Android Wear platform is that the new tracker is intended for medical use. The idea is to track the wearer's health data, such as heart rate, continuously.
[seealso slug="free-tethering-apps"]
"Doctors have always looked for new ways to gain insight into the subtle biological patterns that could help earlier diagnosis or intervention in disease," said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google, in an emailed statement provided to Mashable. "Our hope is that this technology could unlock a new class of continuous, medical-grade information that makes it easier to understand these patterns and manage serious health conditions."
In addition to the health monitoring features, the device can also detect surrounding light and sound conditions (such ambient sensory input is known to have an impact on human health).
In an interview with Bloomberg, Conrad said the device is designed to be a medical one rather than a mainstream, consumer-facing product.
Conrad, who has a background in medical research, says the device will undergo further testing this summer, with the ultimate goal being regulatory clearance in Europe and the U.S. Conrad gave a preview of his plans last year when he talked about his dream of making the Star Trek Tricorder (a fictional portable medical scanning device) a reality.
"We want to have a Tricorder where Dr. McCoy will wave this thing and say 'Oh, you’re suffering from Valerian death fever,'" Conrad told Medium. "And he’d then give some shot in a person’s neck and they’d immediately get better. We won’t do the shots—our partners will do the shots. But we’re hoping to build the Tricorder."
Although the device is, according to Conrad, not targeted toward consumers, it does bear a resemblance to the Apple Watch -- if the Apple Watch were much thicker and unrefined in terms of design.
Also, we've heard this story from Google before. Remember, Google Glass wasn't promoted as a consumer device, but soon after interest from the geek sector picked up, we saw it being paired with high fashion designers and made available to any buyer willing to pay the $1,500 price tag.
Nevertheless, Google is, for now, still a software company first, so it seems unlikely anyone but medical professionals will get their hands on the device anytime soon.