Just a couple of days ago, Shanna Crispin was musing in eHealth Insider about the increasing popularity of pesonal electronic health gadgetry and speculating on a new generation of futuristic devices “from smart clothes to avatars that can support rehab patients”.
Withings’ next advance on its blood pressure monitor for iOS devices that allows users not only to track their results and upload them to a personal health record or email it to their GP is a set of bathroom scales that measure weight, fat mass and lean mass.
But Ki Performance claims its new Ki Fit device monitors the user’s metabolic profile to the extent that it triples the effectiveness of weight loss regimes.
The device- which costs $405, including a year’s subscription to the companion health portal – stays on even when you’re asleep, calculating caloric burn.
Shanna also mentions, less favourably, the UP wristband from Jawbone, but hadn’t caught up with the fact that the company has offered unhappy users a full refund.
More successful is my own favourite, the FitBit Ultra.
The BioHarness from Zephyr Technology – a company whose mission, somewhat startlingly, is “to measure life anywhere” – “measures critical vital signs (ECG, heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature ) and contextualises the information with the individual’s physical activity using an accelerometer (activity and posture).
It uses Smart Fabric sensors in strap or clothing form, which interface with smart phones. “Tactical radios transmit the data to those who care and need to make critical decisions based on an individual’s physiological status.”
Then there’s Irish-based Shimmer Research which took over commercialisation of a wearable wireless sensor from Intel. It has just announced a ‘soft-launch’ of one of its products, intended for patients needing physiotherapy after knee surgery, to the Spanish market.
Meanwhile, at the Wall Street Journal, personal technology columnist Walt Mossberg test drives the new Telcare diabetes meter which the manufacturer claims to be the first to use wireless technology” that instantly transmits a patient’s readings to a private online database, which can be accessed by the patient or—with permission—by a doctor, caregiver or family member”.
The system charts the results to highlight trends and spot problems, and can be accessed via a Web browser or an iPhone app. It automatically transmits relevant feedback—such as whether readings seem high or low—and allows doctors to respond.
Comments on this entry are closed.