San Francisco: Health platform Binah.ai has announced that it has added blood pressure monitoring to the suite of health tools available on its app, which is available through partnered businesses.
According to The Verge, the company said it can calculate blood pressure using only video of someone's face through a smartphone or laptop camera.
However, experts said they need to see significantly more data from the company before they would trust the feature.
Tracking blood pressure without the usual cuff is a longstanding goal for cardiologists and tech companies, the report said.
"We designed this to replace home cuff devices," David Maman, CEO and Co-founder of Binah.ai, was quoted as saying.
To monitor blood pressure, the tool analyses the light reflected off of the face to calculate changes in blood flow a" a technique called photoplethysmography (PPG).
Device and app makers have leveraged that strategy on various body parts to calculate things like blood oxygen levels and heart rate.
Using it for blood pressure, though, is more challenging. Researchers are making progress toward that goal, but experts said that there is still not enough data to show people can rely on this technique clinically.
