Wearables and Simple Telehealth – another step forward?

In addition to Managing Editor Donna’s items on the opening of the Amazon Wearables Store, and the use of wearables by older ‘quantified selfers’,  Prof Mike Short has kindly drawn our attention to the most recent BBC Click programme which features wearables. Of particular interest to me was the first item on how Formula 1 technology involving measuring drivers’ heart activity is now being developed for the mass market, at rather lower cost. That will overcome a serious limitation of existing activity trackers that rely on accelerometers – for example my Jawbone UP faithfully measures every step I take whether walking or on a cross-trainer. However sessions on the rowing machine – or indeed a recent row in the London Head of the River race (for me definitely the most physically exhausting event so far this year), record no activity.

Another intriguing way of measuring heart activity is (more…)