Prototype smartwatch device for prolonged physiological monitoring in remote environments

Abstract

Wearable technology in the form of wristwatches, armbands, or fit monitors has fast widespread lately among technology enthusiasts that are eager for a quick hands-on experience with their own body parameters. Nonetheless, the accuracy, replicability and reproducibility of the measurements collected by these monitors is still highly debatable outside laboratory settings, thus resulting in their nonacceptance as valid medical diagnostic tools. Furthermore, the inability to collect temporally detailed physiological variables like heartrate, pulse plethysmography, skin temperature and galvanic skin response for extended periods of time has also been appointed as a factor contributing to wearables’ nonacceptance within the biomedical research community. Even more so if the monitoring is to be performed in remote places, usually involving prolonged and arduous physical tasks performed by the participant. In this paper, we propose an inexpensive prototype smartwatch for prolonged physiological monitoring in remote environments. Equipped with sensing channels that monitor the aforementioned body variables, the device can also be instructed to operate in an asynchronous recording mode, thereby saving battery life and memory while recording some ambient variables (humidity, temperature, luminescence, and atmospheric pressure) in order to provide descriptive context awareness to the physiological processes taking place inside the human body at the same time.