When Google announced the Pixel Watch 5 on August 12, one of the new features it announced alongside it was the Breathing Emergency Detection feature. It isn’t available in the US yet as it still needs to be approved by the FDA, but it is available in the UK and will be coming to the US later on, with expansion elsewhere at some point too.
Breathing Emergency Detection is a lot like the Loss of Pulse Detection and the Fall Detection that are already available on the Pixel Watch 4, in that it was designed to help recognize when the wearer of said watch is having a breathing emergency. It’s goal is to be a potentially live-saving tool for the person wearing it. But how does it all work and what can users expect from it? Tom’s Guide sat down with Pramod Rudrapatna, Google Product Manager, and Jake Sunshine, Google Researcher to find out.
Breathing Emergency Detection in the Pixel Watch 5 “solves a population-level problem
In their interview with Tom’s Guide, both Rudrapatna and Sunshine spoke about numerous details of the new feature and how it is to be part of Google’s focus on smartwatches going forward of positioning these smartwatches as not just fitness tools, but also health tools that can help save people’s lives. One such detail that follows along that path is how the watch “solves a population-level problem” according to Rudrapatna.
That problem being the fact that lost of breathing can happen for a wide variety of reasons, from drug overdoses to choking to pneumonia. As Rudrapatna puts it, thousands of people are impacted by events like this on a daily basis across the globe, and this feature was designed with those people in mind. Rudrapatna also said the watch is “like an airbag for your wrist.” It’s intended to be a feature that gives you peace of mind, but hopefully not something you’ll actually ever have to rely on.
It’s also important to note that Google does confirm that these features won’t necessarily pick up on every scenario where people are having issues breathing. In other words, it’s not a catch-all or a guarantee. However, Google says it wants these features to at least help in reducing the number of these instances that don’t get a response.
Google also says that this feature will come to the Pixel Watch 4, and it wants to expand availability to as many devices as possible.
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