When we think about the most compelling reasons to own a fully functioning smart home, our minds are probably more likely to turn to efficiency, simplicity, entertainment and security, rather than health. But what would it mean if our homes could monitor our vital signs in a totally non-intrusive manner?

A team of researchers from MIT has developed a wireless sensing technology called Vital-Radio that can ambiently monitor breathing and heart rate. A Vital-Radio device can be implanted in the walls of smart homes to keep track of inhabitants' health in real time. It could potentially benefit any member of a household, but the implications for being able to monitor babies or elderly relatives as they are sleeping are particularly compelling.

In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences.


Health-monitoring technologies tend to be wearable, or they at the very least require some kind of contact with the body, but the theory being put forward by the MIT team suggests that our homes may well be capable of passively monitoring us without the need to attach sensors to ourselves.

The researchers have detailed Vital-Radio in a paper entitled "Smart Homes that Monitor Breathing and Heart Rate". In the paper they claim that the technology boasts a median accuracy of 99 percent from up to eight metres away. It can even measure multiple people simultaneously, and they don't have to be in the same room or even sitting still.

Read next A new Fitbit claims to track your stress levels. Can it really do it? A new Fitbit claims to track your stress levels. Can it really do it?

Vital-Radio exploits the fact that wireless signals are affected by motion in the environment -- movements that can be as small and seemingly insignificant as the chest rising and falling as you inhale and exhale, or skin vibrations caused by your heartbeat. It first isolates a person's reflection and then zooms in to measure their heart rate and their breathing. It does this by transmitting a low-power wireless signal and measuring the time it takes for the signal to be reflected back to the device, where it is then analysed.

MIT


Looking beyond our ability to use our future smart homes to monitor our own health, the researchers believe Vital-Radio could have implications for the wider healthcare industry. "If non-intrusive in-home continuous monitoring of breathing and heartbeats existed, it would enable healthcare professionals to study how these signals correlate with our stress level and evolve with time and age, which could have a major impact on our healthcare system," they write.

In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences.

As they outline in the paper, they also believe that military or search and rescue teams may be interested in the technology for the purposes of detecting human presence through walls or under rubble.


Of course using sensors to read and analyse the body are just the first two steps in creating a user experience that makes smart technology relevant to our lives. The next step is for that analysis to inform the behaviour of appliances and environment. The researchers outline how Vital-Radio at home could change lighting and music by sensing a user's vital signals and inferring their mood from this.

Similarly, it could result in a more personalised experience in public spaces. "A user walking up to a Vital-Radio-enabled kiosk in an unfamiliar location (such as an airport) might receive customised assistance based on his stress level," the researchers write.

Ultimately, the potential for ambient sensing technology could render much of the current wearables market irrelevant. Just as with all potential smart home technologies, there will inevitably be concerns about the security risks that Vital-Radio would leave us open to. Nevertheless, it is one of the first examples we have seen of technology that we would passively interact with every day, being embedded into our environment -- and no doubt it won't be the last.