Google received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for our Loss of Pulse Detection feature starting with Pixel Watch 3.
This first-of-its-kind feature can detect when you’ve experienced a loss of pulse (your heart stops beating from an event like primary cardiac arrest, respiratory or circulatory failure, overdose or poisoning) and automatically prompt a call to emergency services for potentially life-saving care if you’re unresponsive.
Announced in 2024 starting with Pixel Watch 3 in the EU, this feature is available in 14 countries and we’ll begin rolling it out in the U.S. at the end of March.
For three years, Pixel Watch has given people peace of mind with safety and health features like Car Crash Detection, Fall Detection, Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications and the ECG app and Safety Check. Loss of Pulse Detection is a great addition to these potentially life-saving tools.
Loss of pulse occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating. It’s a health emergency, where every minute matters. It can affect people of any age and be due to a wide range of problems inside or outside the heart, such as primary cardiac arrest, respiratory or circulatory failure, overdose or poisoning.1
Pixel Watch 3 introduces a first-of-its-kind Loss of Pulse Detection feature to help people receive emergency care in these situations, even if they’re alone and unable to make the call themselves.2
Getting help from emergency medical services or other trained professionals quickly is critical, but that usually relies on a bystander to recognize the situation and provide or call for help. Unfortunately, many loss of pulse incidents happen when a person is alone, leaving them with effectively no chance of receiving help.
Loss of Pulse Detection on Pixel Watch 3 is an opt-in feature that has the ability to detect loss of pulse and automatically place a call to emergency services if you are unresponsive to provide potentially life-saving care.3 Here’s why we created Pixel Watch 3’s Loss of Pulse Detection feature to fill that gap, and how it works.
Loss of Pulse Detection combines signals from Pixel Watch 3’s sensors, AI and signal-processing algorithms to detect loss of pulse events, with a thoughtful design — built from user research — to limit false alarms. The feature uses signals from the Pixel Watch 3’s existing Heart Rate sensor, which uses green light to check for a user’s pulse.
If the feature detects signs of pulselessness, infrared and red lights also turn on, looking for additional signs of a pulse, while the motion sensor starts to look for movement. An AI-based algorithm brings together the pulse and movement signals to confirm a loss of pulse event, and if so, triggers a check-in to see if you respond.
The check-in asks if you’re OK while also looking for motion. If you don’t respond and no motion is detected, it escalates to an audio alarm and countdown. If you don’t respond to the countdown, the LTE watch or phone your watch is connected to automatically places a call to emergency services, and shares an automated message that no pulse is detected along with your location.
Our goal is to make a difference and contribute towards saving lives. While Loss of Pulse Detection won’t detect every loss of pulse event, we believe it can make a meaningful difference, providing help when it counts most to people and their loved ones.
Loss of Pulse Detection will be available on Pixel Watch 3 in September in various countries in Europe, including the U.K., France, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. We’ll continue working with regulatory bodies to make the feature available in more countries.
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