As the world continues to battle against the global COVID-19 pandemic, technology has had an important role to play, particularly with work-from-home arrangements in place for many workers. Now, the health monitoring aspect of smartwatches is coming under the spotlight, with new research showing that the Apple Watch can be used to detect COVID-19—sometimes, before an individual even knows that he/she is infected.
Most smartwatches, of course, come with heart rate tracking capabilities as a bare minimum, and the Apple Watch series isn’t any different. According to researchers over at Mount Sinai Health System, “subtle changes” in your heartbeat can be used to signal the onset of COVID-19 ahead of time. The key term here is heart rate variability (HRV), which is the variation in time in between heartbeats.