Using smart speakers to contactlessly monitor heart rhythms

Abstract

Heart rhythm assessment is indispensable in diagnosis and management of many cardiac conditions and to study heart rate variability in healthy individuals. We present a proof-of-concept system for acquiring individual heart beats using smart speakers in a fully contact-free manner. Our algorithms transform the smart speaker into a short-range active sonar system and measure heart rate and inter-beat intervals (R-R intervals) for both regular and irregular rhythms. The smart speaker emits inaudible 18–22 kHz sound and receives echoes reflected from the human body that encode sub-mm displacements due to heart beats. We conducted a clinical study with both healthy participants and hospitalized cardiac patients with diverse structural and arrhythmic cardiac abnormalities including atrial fibrillation, flutter and congestive heart failure. Compared to electrocardiogram (ECG) data, our system computed R-R intervals for healthy participants with a median error of 28 ms over 12,280 heart beats and a correlation coefficient of 0.929. For hospitalized cardiac patients, the median error was 30 ms over 5639 heart beats with a correlation coefficient of 0.901. The increasing adoption of smart speakers in hospitals and homes may provide a means to realize the potential of our non-contact cardiac rhythm monitoring system for monitoring of contagious or quarantined patients, skin sensitive patients and in telemedicine settings.

A Survey of Approaches to Unobtrusive Sensing of Humans

“…In [85], the authors proposed a system based on a normal microphone and a computer speaker. Additionally, in [84], the authors also proposed a similar system based on Smart Speakers. These devices are becoming more common as we witness an increasing trend in the use of smart devices and in the deployment of smart home solutions.…”

Smart Speakers: The Next Frontier in mHealth

“…Similarly, in radar-based systems, electromagnetic waves are transmitted into the environment and phase changes in the reflected signals can be used to classify medically relevant motion. The potential use cases of these sonar- and radar-based active sensing modalities include monitoring of chest motion or breathing [ 30 ] and its perturbations (pertinent for asthma [ 31 ], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] [ 32 ], OSA [ 33 ], and opioid overdose [ 34 ]), sleep disturbance (eg, insomnia), identification of incipient respiratory infection, measurement of cardiac activity (eg, heart rate and atrial fibrillation) [ 35 ], monitoring of activity levels based on movement, epilepsy monitoring, and more.…”

Cardiología Digital (e-Cardiología): herramientas de utilidad para el diagnóstico y manejo del paciente con fibrilación auricular

“…Otra línea de desarrollo tecnológico aplica un sistema de sonar similar al usado en los radares, que basado en el parlante del celular emite señales continuas en frecuencia modulada. La señal de cada latido cardíaco es recibida por el micrófono y luego de un complejo procesamiento y el uso de varios algoritmos, concluye en una señal que permite computar los intervalos RR, su variabilidad y definir la probabilidad de la existencia de FA (28) . En estudios clínicos preliminares realizados para validar la idea, se comprobó una excelente correlación entre los RR medidos de esta forma y el ECG.…”