Google is not new to using existing devices to collect user health data – just to give an example, Google Fit uses the camera to track heart and respiratory rates – and now, according to what is suggested by the Google Health app Studies, would have in mind to test automatic cough and snore detection on Pixels and/or Android.
Of course, the function in question is still far from being concretely introduced, indeed we cannot even be sure of its implementation: the 9to5Google team discovered it through the usual APK Insight: the most recent version of Google Health has been decompiled. Studies are available on the Google Play Store.
Google wants to detect snoring and coughing in your sleep
Yes, because on May 24, 2022, Google Health Studies received the update to version 2.0 (here is the link to the Play Store to download it, provided you have a compatible device) to support the launch of a new digital wellness study. Some strings of code in this update reveal the existence of a studio titled “Sleep Audio Collection” and available only and exclusively to Google employees. Here is what we officially read:
“You must be a Full-Time Googler with an Android phone to participate in this study. Environmental conditions required for this study are to have no more than one adult sleeper in the same room who does not work for a competitor company”.
In short, to take part in the study you must first of all be Google employees and owners of a smartphone with an Android operating system; secondly, a requirement in terms of “environmental conditions” must be respected: having no more than one adult who does not work for Google sleeping in the same room.
The Mountain View giant goes on to explain that its “Health Sensing team is actively working to introduce an advanced suite of detection features and algorithms on Android devices with the aim of making meaningful sleep data available to users”. This collection of audio is functional precisely to “support this mission by providing the data necessary to validate, optimize and develop such algorithms”.
These “cough and snoring algorithms” will translate into a “bed monitoring” function on Android devices, which will only work locally (“on-device”) in such a way as to safeguard the privacy of users, for “night monitoring. of coughing and snoring.
At present, it is not possible to say with certainty whether this automatic cough and snoring detection function will in the future be made available to all Android users or if Big G will decide to make it a new exclusive for Pixel users.
The latter, in all likelihood, will be at least the first to be able to exploit it. Right now, in all honesty, it is not even known in which of the many Google apps the function will actually be placed, even if the most natural candidates are obviously Google Fit and Google Watch.
In this regard, it can be remembered that in 2020 Google had introduced the Rest hub right in the Watch, making it work with Digital Wellbeing in order to produce an estimate of the time spent in bed by the user. In order to be able to make such an estimate, the user must give the Clock app access to motion and light detection.
Meanwhile, Fitbit – which for some time has been part of the Google world – offers a Snore & Noise Detect function on the Sense and Versa 3 smartwatches and Google itself offers a function comparable to the second generation Nest Hub smart display.
One could even speculate on the possible launch of the function onboard the Google Pixel Tablet – expected for 2023 – in its alleged configuration from Smart Display/dock. However, one thing is certain: if it made it available to all Android users, Google would have more data to refine the function.