Wearable Tech
Canada's Olympic darlings, the Dufour-Lapointe sisters had an advantage when training… the sisters wore tanktops measuring biometrics such as steps taken, breathing, heart rate, GPS and g-force. The Hexoskin undershirt was created by Montreal biotech company Carré Technologies. The company received funding through Indigogo (a crowdfunding website) and the Canadian Space Agency, which recently tested the wearable clothing under extreme Antarctic weather conditions and researchers are able to monitor results remotely from anywhere in the world. The device not only works with smartphone and smartwatch apps via bluetooth – Hexoskin's developers have opened their data to allow for customization.
Hexoskin won "Best Wearable Device" at the 2013 Wearable Tech Expo - and the medical community is taking note. Jean-Francois Roy, Hexoskin's co-founder says the garment "does not only give a heart rate, it provides a full ECG with heart rate variability". Instead of monitoring people with electrodes and blood pressure cuffs we could have people simply put on a vest. The shirts are expected to be used by astronauts in space by 2016 and can be purchased by the public.
Click on the picture below to see just how the device works.
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