Determination of SpO2 and heart-rate using smartphone camera

Cardiovascular diseases are emerging as the leading cause of death worldwide. Preventive cardiology appears to be the most promising approach to tackle this problem. The greatest important component of effective preventive cardiology is to collect and monitor health data over an extended period of time. This can only be achieved with a non-invasive, very easy to use and widely available data collection process. The mobile phones with multiple inbuilt sensors can be used to design and develop applications to collect different biomedical signals. In this paper, we propose to use a mobile phone´s camera to estimate two vital cardiovascular parameters, namely, pulse oximeter (SpO₂) level and heart-rate. This is achieved by using the phone´s ability to record and detect variations in colour signals in a fingertip placed in contact with its optical sensor, i.e. camera. The accuracy of this application is confirmed by comparing the results obtained to that of standard pulse oximeters available in the market.