The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab recently came out with a mobile app that uses the smartphone camera to detect crucial signs of heart arrhythmia by capturing certain facial signs of the person that the application is being used on. The application uses Cardiio, a program from a previous app developed by the group.

Cardiio, which shares its name with the Media Lab spinout that developed the app, is another fitness application developed by the Media Lab that features technology that would measure the heart rate of a person from the light reflected by his face. With this previous technology, the lab decided to integrate a method to track the tiny changes in the reflection of light from the person’s face and convert it to a heart rate monitor by comparing it to time. Through this analysis of heart rate, the application successfully monitors the heart rate for any irregularities in heartbeat.

Although the development of the application is still in progress, this application will potentially save millions of lives as it will allow people to detect early signs of arrhythmia and get early treatment.