Light sensors on wearables struggle with dark skin and obesity
Apple Watch | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Light sensors used to track heart rate in wearable devices like the Apple Watch Series 5 and the Fitbit Versa 2 don't work as well on darker skin or people with obesity, according to modeling done in a new study.
That's a problem for features currently built into devices - but it's also a bad sign for efforts to use light sensors for new applications in wearables, like monitoring blood pressure, says study author Jessica Ramella-Roman, an associate professor studying bioimaging sensors at Florida International University.
The architecture of the device has to change," she says.
The study looked at the photoplethysmography (PPG) signal, a technique that uses changes in how light is reflected to measure blood flow, on three wearable...