A student at the University of Virginia has developed a biofeedback system that allows smartphones to play the music that its owner’s heart needs, whether to beat hard while exercising or to slow down when the goal is to relax. “When I’m driving, jogging, traveling or resting, I don’t always find the most appropriate music, and I think the same thing happens to many people,” says Shahriar Nirjon, engineering student and inventor of the new system, which he has dubbed Musical Heart .
Musical Heart works thanks to a microphone that detects the pulse in the arteries of the ear (inside the earphone) and transmits it to a remote server, which then takes care of selecting the most suitable melody for the user’s heart rate at all times. . An algorithm refines the musical selection by storing data on the heart rate and analyzing how the chosen music affects a specific individual. In this way, Nirjon clarifies, the system “improves itself” to get closer and closer to its goal: that the music sounds to the beat of our heart .
