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Old wisdom, new sensors, plain words
Qira combines two ways of looking at the body. Here is what each part does, where it comes from and where its limits are.
Photos of your tongue
Top and underside. Qira checks sharpness and light on your phone, then sends the photos securely to an AI model for reading. Qira doesn't keep them on its servers.
A 30-second heart scan
Face or fingertip. The video is analysed on your phone and never leaves it. Only the resulting numbers are used for your reading.
A few quick questions
How you slept, your energy and digestion. Practitioners always ask, because how you feel matters as much as what they see.
Why look at the tongue?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), looking at the tongue is one of the four classic ways of assessing a person, next to asking questions, listening and feeling the pulse. Practitioners note the body color, the coating, the shape, the moisture and how each area of the tongue looks.
Qira's AI is guided by these same rules. It describes what it sees ("a slightly swollen tongue with light tooth marks and a thin yellow coat") and then maps it to common TCM patterns, such as running warm, running cold or feeling heavy and damp.
TCM is a traditional framework, not a lab test. Qira uses it as a way to reflect on your day, never to name a disease.
How a camera can see your pulse
Every heartbeat pushes a little more blood into the small vessels of your skin, and the skin's color shifts by a tiny amount, far too small to see by eye. A camera records it frame by frame. This technique is called remote photoplethysmography, or rPPG.
Qira's scan uses a published method called POS (plane-orthogonal-to-skin), which separates the pulse signal from changes in light and movement. From the clean pulse wave it finds each beat, then works out:
- Heart rate: beats per minute
- HRV: how much the time between beats varies (RMSSD and SDNN)
- Breathing rate: from the slow rise and fall breathing adds to the pulse
- Stress index: from the rhythm of the beat-to-beat intervals
The fingertip mode uses the back camera and light, which usually gives a stronger signal. All of this runs on your phone.
How your Qi Score is made
Your Qi Score, from 0 to 100, combines the tongue findings, your heart scan numbers and your answers into one picture of balance for the day. A higher score means fewer signs of imbalance. Your reading then explains:
- What's happening: the main pattern, in everyday words
- What you may notice: how this pattern often feels
- Why: the signs that led to it, so nothing is a black box
- What to do today: one food idea, one pressure point and one breathing or movement tip
The score is most useful as a trend. A single morning can be thrown off by a late night or a spicy dinner. Seven mornings in a row tell you much more.
What Qira is, and what it isn't
Qira is
- A daily wellness check-in for self-reflection
- A friendly way to learn how Chinese medicine sees the body
- A habit tool with simple food, breathing and pressure-point ideas
Qira is not
- A medical device or a diagnosis
- A replacement for your doctor or a qualified practitioner
- A blood pressure, oxygen or temperature monitor
Camera readings are estimates. Light, movement, makeup and skin tone can affect the signal, and we are testing Qira's heart scan against reference devices. If you feel unwell, contact a health professional.
Your face stays on your phone
- The heart scan video is processed on your device and never uploaded
- Tongue and meal photos are sent securely for AI reading and not kept on Qira's servers
- Your history lives on your phone
- Your health data is never used for advertising
References
- Wang W, den Brinker AC, Stuijk S, de Haan G. Algorithmic principles of remote PPG. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2017;64(7):1479–1491.
- Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Circulation, 1996;93(5):1043–1065.
- Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. An overview of heart rate variability metrics and norms. Frontiers in Public Health, 2017;5:258.
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