Via Engadget comes a report about the beta version of WEALTHY, the Wearable Health Care System. A European consortion apparently spent years designing a garment that senses temperature, respiration, and movement, and uses mobile phone signalling to transmit the data or alert emergency serives:
The basic building blocks of such a system include:
— “Smart” sensors, which provide direct sensing capabilities to textile materials.
— A cost-effective, non-invasive and wearable system based on wearable and wireless-instrumented garments, which are able to detect user-specific physiological signals.
— An intelligent system for data representation and alert functions, which is able to create intelligent patient feedback and deliver appropriate information to a target professional.
— Electronic devices for transmitting the signals by means of GPRS using the standard GSM network, thus allowing usage of the sensing garment “anywhere” – at home, at work, at the hospital/rehabilitation centre as well as away from a local base station.
— Advanced telecommunication protocols and services (e.g. Bluetooth for short range).
— Effective and user-friendly data format.
They also talk about the need for a “friendly interface for professionals,” which, no doubt, encouraged engineers to use skin-tight bodysuits.
More at WEALTHY…