PulseOn: A wrist device that helped expose a rally driver’s hidden heart condition

By Ndéla Faye | Photos: Cata Portin

PulseOn’s wearable innovation is reshaping arrhythmia detection with an easy-to-use solution that improves diagnostic accuracy, saves doctors’ valuable time – and can help save lives.

Four-time World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen is no stranger to life at full speed. Even in his mid-sixties, he splits his time between leading Toyota’s rally team and an active retirement life. But a few years ago, something felt off. He began noticing occasional irregular heartbeats. Concerned, he visited his doctor, underwent tests, and wore a Holter monitor – but the episodes never appeared during monitoring, and no diagnosis was made.

Then, by chance, Kankkunen sat next to Jari Kaija, CEO of Finnish health-tech company PulseOn on a flight to London. Kaija’s company had developed a wrist-worn arrhythmia monitor that continuously tracks every heartbeat using optical pulse monitoring and prompts an ECG whenever it detects an irregular rhythm. He offered Kankkunen the chance to try it.

Thanks to a chance meeting with PulseOn’s CEO, rally legend Juha Kankkunen finally uncovered the cause for the health symptoms he had been experiencing.

Detecting what short-term monitoring often misses

Unlike a smartwatch, PulseOn’s device is a certified medical tool designed for doctors. It runs for seven days on a single charge and recharges in just two hours, enabling weeks or months of uninterrupted monitoring. It is available in hospitals, through private healthcare providers, and in well-equipped pharmacies.

For nine weeks, the device followed Kankkunen’s heart rhythm day and night. At last, it captured what every other test had missed: an episode of cardiac arrhythmia. With the data now available, doctors diagnosed Kankkunen with atrial fibrillation (AFib), a heart rhythm disorder that can lead to stroke.

Each year, 15 million people worldwide experience a stroke, and nearly four million of those are linked to AFib. In Western Europe, over half of newly diagnosed AFib patients have no symptoms. Short-term or symptom-based monitoring often fails to detect the condition until serious harm occurs.

“In most cases, patients newly diagnosed with AFib are completely asymptomatic,” Kaija explains. “Our device detects also these silent arrhythmias and can be worn for long periods without affecting daily life or measurement quality.”

For patients, the device is unobtrusive: no wires, no sticky electrodes, no disruption. For doctors and hospitals, it saves time, reduces repeat visits and provides clear, continuous data.

Kankkunen feels fortunate that his condition was found early. For many like him, this technology could mean the difference between a healthy future or having an undetected health issue potentially causing a preventable stroke. “It’s a solution that fits seamlessly into patients’ lives while giving doctors the accuracy they need,” Kaija concludes.