Google is turning another device into a wellness gadget. A month after introducing two health features to the Pixel smartphone, Google on Tuesday added a new sleep sensing component for the Nest Hub, its smart display device.
The feature is the product of a collaboration between Google’s Nest and Health teams. The company recruited Stanford neurologist and sleep researcher Logan Schneider to help study and validate the effort against polysomnography, the standard form of sleep study that records brain waves, blood oxygen level, heart rate and breathing, and eye and leg movements — typically in a special type of sleep lab or clinic. Google validated its approach with data from 33 people ages 19 to 78 without significant sleep issues.
“We wanted to be able to see how closely we could match polysomnography,” Schneider said, “and we found no statistical difference” between our device and the standard test, he added. Google has not published its results in a peer-reviewed journal.
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