Google's Verily to develop smart shoes that detect weight

(Representational image)

Google’s lifesciences are Verily is looking for partners to make smart shoes that would track weight and also monitor falls. The company is looking for partners to co-develop the shoes with embedded trackers and sensors to achieve its product goals.

A report by CNBC stated that three people who are involved in the development process said that the company has been showing different prototypes of the design in private meetings to potential partners in order to attract them to co-develop the product and take it to the market.

Although there is no clarity on whether the project is still active or not, if Verily decides to produce these shoes, it could detect many health-related issues that arise due to weight. For example, sudden weight gain could mean that the body is retaining fluid, which is a symptom of congestive heart failure.

Another feature that the smart shoes could provide is fall detection. Apple already provides this feature in its smartwatch Series 4. When a person wearing an Apple Watch falls and does not move, the watch automatically calls an emergency number which has been updated by the user. The feature, if made available, could make Verily’s shoes very popular as falls are the number one cause of injuries and deaths due to injuries for senior citizens in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Verily would not be the first company to develop smart shoes with such features. E-VONE designs smart shoes in 26 different styles that have sensors which detect a fall.

Verily, previously known as Google Life Sciences became a separate company under Alphabet, which is also Google’s parent company.  The company is already working on other healthcare related projects like Liftware, a stabilising spoon that helps people with movement disorders eat, a smart contact lens for elderly who have issues with sight or for the ones who want to improve their eyesight after cataract surgery. Verily is also using Google’s machine learning to detect heart-disease risks through scans of a person’s eyes. The company has partnered with several companies for these projects in order to develop and manufacture the products.