Monitoring Heart Health, One Toilet Seat at a Time | Hacker News Reader

Monitoring Heart Health, One Toilet Seat at a Time

spectrum.ieee.org

38 pointsmyinnerbanjo7 comments

To me, Emfit makes a lot more sense as these measurements (including heart rate variability) are best made when you are relaxed and sleeping. It's a sensor that is put under the mattress. It will detect when you lie down and continuously collect ballistocardiography and sleep data: https://www.emfit.com

During the day, you can wear a smartwatch or a smart ring instead.

This reminds me of Chris Speed's toilet paper sensor experiment. Although it's more frivolous, the fairly detailed analysis of the ethics and sensitivities around monitoring people's visits to the toilet seems to apply equally well for this invention...

http://chrisspeed.net/?p=1529

This was already parodied four years ago:

https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/18/smart-pipe-just-might-be-t...

Is there any of these markers that couldn't be tracked with a smart watch?

Of course, some people (like myself) might prefer not to wear a smart watch so it can still make sense and places like hospitals seem like an obvious market as well..

A smart watch is only touching one point of the body. More complex ECGs need multiple locations to measure a circuit through the body (that's my naive understanding).

smart watches are terrible at measuring heart rate because they are at wrist. much better at finger tips for example.

was checking my iwatch while I've done an exercise that had its own heart monitor. the iwatch data wasn't even close.

That's not quite correct. Smart watches have gotten quite good at measuring heart rate. They are sometimes a bit slow to notice drastic changes (like going from sedentary to exercise), but they're pretty accurate when it comes to just counting beats per unit of time. They can be, however, quite sensitive. If it's not working well for you, it's likely because the sensor is wet, or dirty, too tight or too loose.

The fingertip seems like a truly terrible place to measure heart rate, given that fingers are constantly moving and pretty sensitive to pressure. They're the easiest place to measure oxygen saturation (SpO2) though.

Most (if not all?) smart watches have optical sensors, which register the flow of blood. You can measure the change in velocity and count the number of beats and the time between them. It doesn't tell you anything about what the heart is doing. A single lead ECG can do that reasonably well. Anything more professional (12 lead holter) quickly becomes impractical for long term use.

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