You might not need to buy a fitness tracker or smartwatch to get a portable heart rate monitor soon, because Realme has confirmed that one of its next phones will feature beat-counting tech built in.
This comes from the company's Vice President Madhav Sheth, who Tweeted to say that the Realme 9 Pro Plus will get a heart rate monitor, along with a video of how this would work on the phone.
The interface shown in the short clip confirms that the feature uses the phone's in-screen fingerprint scanner, which in turn tells us that the upcoming mobile will get this unlocking tool.
Features like this generally aren't accurate compared to proper heart rate tracking equipment, but fitness fans or health-conscious users might find it a fun extra for the phone.
Keep a track of your health and be aware of it throughout the day. Our upcoming #realme9Pro+ will feature a heart rate sensor. pic.twitter.com/K0vUoDaGl5February 1, 2022
This isn't the first phone to ever feature a heart rate monitor built into the device, as Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Note phones between the S5 and Note 9 touted the feature - since then, no-one has used the feature.
At the moment, we don't actually know if the Realme 9 Pro Plus is the only member of its family to get the health tech, or if the 9 and 9 Pro could too.
We haven't heard too much about the Realme 9 Pro Plus just yet, though the company has previously confirmed its existence alongside standard and Pro models.
These three mobiles are expected to be the next entries in Realme's numbered series of budget phones, though we don't know when they're coming or if they'll arrive together.
We're also expecting the global rollout of the Realme GT 2 series, and we don't expect the company would launch multiple families at once, so we'll almost certainly have to wait on one or the other.
Analysis: a good start
We rarely see genuinely brand-new features brought to smartphones, other than the occasional occurrences of magnetic gadgets (something Apple and Realme have dabbled with) or styli (some Samsung and Motorola mobiles use them).
The Realme 9 Pro Plus having a built-in heart rate monitor is a good start towards the phone having a suite of interesting and novel features.
Alone, though, it's not enough - a heart rate sensor isn't a cool enough feature in itself to draw someone to the Realme over another phone.
So unless the phone has surprisingly competitive specs or pricing, we'd like Realme to include a few other interesting additions to really make the Realme 9 series shine.
