New feature added in Mi Health app, will tell heart rate from phone’s camera

The Mi Health app has now received a new update that supports heart rate monitoring. The update comes with version number 2.7.4 and should reportedly reach all Mi Health app users in the coming days. The Mi Health app was launched last year and was made available only to select MIUI users. At the time, the app had some fitness tracking features along with sleep monitoring and menstrual cycle tracking, but no heart rate monitoring. Now this special feature has been added with the new update.

XDA Developers reports that the Mi Health app is getting heart rate monitoring support. This feature will use the phone camera to measure heart rate data. There is a new Heart Rate section inside the app and this segment has a red icon at the bottom right of the screen. Tapping on it will start heart rate monitoring. The screen will instruct you to block the camera and flash. As soon as you do this, the phone will start measuring the heart rate. Users need to block the camera and flash until the screen shows that detection has been completed.

Once the measurement is complete, the Mi Health app asks about the user’s condition immediately before the measurement i.e. ‘whether they were in a normal state, resting, or whether they exercised.’ After selecting the correct option and pressing the ‘View Report’ button a test report appears on the screen, which will include the heart rate and a graphic. It will advise whether the heart rate is normal, slow or fast. The Mi Health app is not available on Google Play and is only listed on some devices running MIUI.