Smart Homes that Monitor Breathing and Heart Rate

TLDR

Ubiquitous sensing technologies have enabled intelligent environments that can monitor and respond to daily activities such as heating, gestures, and elderly care. This study investigates whether smart environments can remotely monitor vital signs without body instrumentation. Vital‑Radio uses wireless signal perturbations caused by chest motion and heartbeats to non‑contactly measure breathing and heart rate, achieving a median 99 % accuracy even up to 8 m away or in another room. The system can simultaneously monitor multiple occupants’ vital signs, suggesting that smart homes could continuously track residents’ health without wearable devices.

Abstract

The evolution of ubiquitous sensing technologies has led to intelligent environments that can monitor and react to our daily activities, such as adapting our heating and cooling systems, responding to our gestures, and monitoring our elderly. In this paper, we ask whether it is possible for smart environments to monitor our vital signs remotely, without instrumenting our bodies. We introduce Vital-Radio, a wireless sensing technology that monitors breathing and heart rate without body contact. Vital-Radio exploits the fact that wireless signals are affected by motion in the environment, including chest movements due to inhaling and exhaling and skin vibrations due to heartbeats. We describe the operation of Vital-Radio and demonstrate through a user study that it can track users' breathing and heart rates with a median accuracy of 99%, even when users are 8~meters away from the device, or in a different room. Furthermore, it can monitor the vital signs of multiple people simultaneously. We envision that Vital-Radio can enable smart homes that monitor people's vital signs without body instrumentation, and actively contribute to their inhabitants' well-being.