Pulse Sensor – Heart Rate Detector

The working of the Pulse/Heartbeat sensor is very simple. The sensor has two sides, on one side the LED is placed along with an ambient light sensor and on the other side, we have some circuitry. This circuitry is responsible for the amplification and noise cancellation work. The LED on the front side of the sensor is placed over a vein in our human body. This can either be your Fingertip or your ear tips, but it should be placed directly on top of a vein.

Pulse Sensor Heart rate data can be really useful whether you are designing an exercise routine, studying your activity or anxiety levels, or just want your shirt to blink with your heartbeat. The problem is that the heart rate can be difficult to measure. Luckily, the Pulse Sensor Amped can solve that problem. The Pulse Sensor Amped is a plug-and-play heart-rate sensor for Arduino. It can be used by students, artists, athletes, makers, and game & mobile developers who want to easily incorporate live heart-rate data into their projects. It essentially combines a simple optical heart rate sensor with amplification and noise cancellation circuitry, making it fast and easy to get reliable pulse readings. Also, it sips power with just 4mA current draw at 5V, so it’s great for mobile applications. Simply clip the Pulse Sensor to your earlobe or fingertip and plug it into your 3 or 5 Volt Arduino and you are ready to read heart rate! The 24′ cable on the Pulse Sensor is terminated with standard male headers so there is no soldering required. Of course, Arduino example code is available, as well as a processing sketch for visualizing heart rate data.

Caution:

This sensor is not medical or FDA approved. It is purely intended for hobby projects/demos and should not be used for health critical applications.

Pin Description:

Pin Number	Pin Name	Wire Color	Description
1	Ground	Black	Connected to the ground of the system
2	VCC	Red	Connect to +5V or +3.3V supply voltage
3	Signal	Purple	Pulsating output signal.

How It Works:

Now the LED emits light which will fall on the vein directly. The veins will have blood flow inside them only when the heart is pumping, so if we monitor the flow of blood we can monitor the heartbeats as well. If the flow of blood is detected then the ambient light sensor will pick up more light since it will be reflected ted by the blood, this minor change in received light is analyzed over time to determine our heartbeats.