Technabob » ekg

Smart Shirt Makes Things Easier for Hospital Patients

Hazel Chua — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:45:39 +0000

The hospital is one of my least favorite places in the world. I just get a negative vibe whenever I’m in one, although I haven’t really had a particularly traumatic experience inside one myself. What I have tried, though, was being admitted to a hospital a few years ago because I had been a running a high fever for several days straight.

One of the hassles of being an in-patient is that you’re often hooked up on to monitoring machines and are literally confined in your hospital room. However, a team from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain want to change that with their Nuubo smart shirt.

Obviously, this shirt is no ordinary piece of clothing. You can think of it like a portable monitoring machine that you can wear to keep track of your vital signs, and can alert doctors and nurses if anything is amiss. It’s also embedded with a GPS unit that will let hospital staff locate you if you wander too far away from your ward. Moreover, the shirt can even be programmed to run an EKG chest remotely with the push of a button.

The shirt is currently being put on a trial run in a hospital environment, and I hope it’s something we’ll be able to see in use in hospitals very soon.

[via Engadget via Dvice]

Colin O’Dowd’S Ekg Coat Rack Definitely No Flatliner

Technabob — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:48:53 +0000

Looking for a cool way to keep your coats up off the floor? Then look no further than the Beat coat rack by designer Colin O’Dowd.

Whether you think of it as the pulse of a beating heart, the waveform of your favorite tune, or the trend line for your stock portfolio, it’s definitely a conversation piece on any wall. The Beat retails for £40 (appx. $60 USD) over at O’Dowd’s online shop.

Heartbeat LED Watch Performs Cpr on Itself

Technabob — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:55:58 +0000

This funky modern watch out of Japan tells time not with hands or numbers, but with a tiny little electrocardiogram machine that sits on your wrist.

OK, the EIN Cyber Heartbeat LED watch doesn’t actually tell you if your heart is still beating, but its LED graphical display is styled to look like a mini heart monitor. From the looks of these display instructions, though, don’t ask me to tell you what time it is. I’ve got a better chance of telling you if you’re in sinus rhythm or VTAC. Push an amp of epi now! (Yeah, I watch ER, what of it?)

Unlike other LED watches which usually remain pitch black until a button is pressed, the display on the Heartbeat can be left on all the time if you so choose. That’s because the watch provides its own built in resuscitation capability. Just plug the watch into your computer’s USB port, and the Heartbeat will recharge in an hour or two. A single charge should give you about 24 hours of constant illumination. Of course, if you prefer to only see the time on-demand, you’ll get several months on a single charge.

The Heartbeat is available in both black and brushed stainless versions, with a choice of either a green or red LED display.

So far, I haven’t found a retailer for the Heartbeat outside of Japan, but if you’re willing to brush up on your little Katakana, you can find them at Seahope for ¥25,200 (appx. $290 USD).