New heart rate monitor takes your pulse via webcam

Digital health incubator Rock Health is hosting the 2012 Health Innovation Summit this week in San Francisco. In a series of posts, I’ll be profiling some of the interesting new health companies represented at the summit. You can browse all of the startups I liked from the Rock Health summit here.

MIT post-doctoral researchers Jackie Lee and Ming-Zher Poh, and Columbia doctorate graduate Yukkee Poh set out to make a health monitor device that allowed consumers to easily obtain information about their bodies. What they came up with was a platform that quickly delivers a consumer’s heart rate by using a camera to detect the minuscule changes in light that bounce of the face, which indicates pulse.

This technology could eventually incorporate more vital statistics and could be used to monitor babies’ vital signs, the founders said. Cardiio was selected as one of 15 companies in the Rock Health spring 2012 class.