Turns out your phone already has a heart rate sensor like the Galaxy S5's

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The new Samsung Galaxy S5 is packed full of new and very enticing features, but the one that’s excited us health and fitness tech fans here at Shiny Shiny the most has to be the built-in heart rate sensor.

But if you can’t afford a new handset anytime soon then don’t worry, because it turns out the smartphone you already have is probably just as capable of telling you what your heart rate is. Although this is great news for most people, it’s a little disappointing (yet hardly surprising) that the heart rate sensor that’s being touted as an integral part of Samsung’s new offering is a bit of a lame gimmick.

The video below, created by macmixing, takes an in-depth look at the Galaxy S5’s heart rate sensor in comparison to the Android and iOS app Runtastic, which does a bunch of things as well as read your heart rate from the flash and camera on the back of your phone.

Don’t believe us? The macmixing team put all of the different options to the test and prove that, although the Samsung Galaxy S5’s dedicated heart rate sensor may sound appealing, our current phones with the Runtastic app provide us with a result that’s just as accurate.

Becca Caddy