Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

The sensors in the hospital monitor which goes on your finger are the very same sensors you find in the wrist based monitors in these watches.

There are questions about the reliability of the data from the red led sensors. I know one manufacturer now relies only on the green led.

At Uni a friend's project to monitor the heart rates of crabs involved drilling through the shell, placing an electrode on the soft inner body of the crab, and passing a 25KHz electrical signal through it! That seems a bit extreme to me

Do the monitors in hospitals not have to pass double blind studies etc or do the makers of consumer heart rate monitors use medical grade equipment? Either seems unlikely although I bow to your greater knowledge.

What does the LED thing mean please?

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I got a bunch of these for Xmas you may (or may not) recall:

https://buy.thetrackr.co/br/07/?utm_source=GU&utm_medium=GU&utm_campaign=GU&aff_id=1160&creat_id=321&clk_id=19739355&sub_id=156102

Well I've got a meeting with the distributor tomorrow to talk about me selling them on the side!

We have a crate full of gps trackers from a 'time and motion' study from about 8 years ago which we handed out for a week then took back in and had to plug each one into a usb to download the data. Tech moves on so quickly these days.

Generali wrote: »

£15-20 depending on how many are bought. I expect there to be a discount for Nice People.

For that money you could buy a small andoid phone that would be much more flexible (bluetooth plus wifi plus mobile comms) although you would of course have to charge it daily.

kabayiri wrote: »

I find it interesting this sort of technology, independent of whether I am a potential consumer or not.

What happens if you attach a tag to someone elses keys and then lay claim to those keys to a passing constable (as if!), demonstrating how the technology proves ownership.

To work fully both the items doing the protecting and the devices being protected need to have a verifiable and (relatively) unmodifiable concept of "self". They then need to cooperate with other devices once the authorisation to do so is proven.

A tag which merely fastens on to something has obvious limitations.

In the security field of work (infosec) there are some often heated debates on the issues involved. It's fascinating at times.

I remember one guy arguing that you can only authenticate on the "soul" :rotfl:

It would be a bit of a pain having to take your sock off every time you wanted to make a purchase, I can just imagine the scenes at the Oyster tube barriers....

Generali

michaels wrote: »

For that money you could buy a small andoid phone that would be much more flexible (bluetooth plus wifi plus mobile comms) although you would of course have to charge it daily.

I'm struggling to think of a phone that I could put in my wallet or attach to the back of the TV remote.

The point isn't flexibility, it's a cheap product which does one thing well.

Sofa beds aren't any good as sofas nor beds. I don't want a phone attached to the back of my remote control.

michaels

kabayiri wrote: »

I am convinced this sort of personal technology will revolutionise the world of individual medical care...

...or at least I was, until my recent experience with a Heart rate monitor in my fitness watch.

According to a common formula, my max heart rate should be 168 or so.

Doing intensive intervals mine is peaking at 215 - 220. I am either on Speed or misinterpreting the data!

I reckon loads of people are going to visit their GP because their Fitbit Supreme is telling them they are in fact dead

With the monitor on our treadmill you put your hands on the sensors and it says 72, then you hold on for two minutes or so and it gradually increases to a final steady figure that may be approximately accurate.

DD2 spent the weekend in hospital a couple of months back with low O2 sats. Spurred on by this I bought an O2 monitor that goes on the end of the finger and also does pulse rate, paid the top end of the cheap prices (range 10-30 quid) as after that they are 150 quid.

For me, DW and other 2 DKs we put it on our finger and immediately get 98/99 which is the max reading. DD2 always gets low 90s but after a fair bit of shifting the monitor between fingers and waiting we can finally get a 98/99 reading. Clearly for some reason it is hard to get a correct reading for her. this may explain why when she was in hospital she did not seem nearly as unwell as the o2 readings were suggesting.

Unfortunately it also means the meter is not going to be so useful for spotting if she is unwell again in the future.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

Do the monitors in hospitals not have to pass double blind studies etc or do the makers of consumer heart rate monitors use medical grade equipment? Either seems unlikely although I bow to your greater knowledge.

What does the LED thing mean please?

Sorry Gen, I forget sometimes.

LED = Light Emitting Diode = the small light emitters.

The basic premise isn't that difficult. You pick something which can be monitored which changes when the heart pulses. In the case of a crab the body resistance changes by 1 ohm.

I think these light based devices measure the translucency or something of the blood in veins when it changes direction. (I'm no medical expert)

One of the main watch makers switched recently from Mio to a South African company. This is because they believed the technology was mature enough to use off the shelf parts, but that the real value came further up the application stack.

It's now easier to use software to compensate and correct for hardware limitations.

Medical grade devices may be more robust, I'm not sure.

There's a reviewer called DCRainmaker who blogs who goes into quite some depth on these watches and Heart Rate Monitors

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Sorry Gen, I forget sometimes.

LED = Light Emitting Diode = the small light emitters.

The basic premise isn't that difficult. You pick something which can be monitored which changes when the heart pulses. In the case of a crab the body resistance changes by 1 ohm.

I think these light based devices measure the translucency or something of the blood in veins when it changes direction. (I'm no medical expert)

One of the main watch makers switched recently from Mio to a South African company. This is because they believed the technology was mature enough to use off the shelf parts, but that the real value came further up the application stack.

It's now easier to use software to compensate and correct for hardware limitations.

Medical grade devices may be more robust, I'm not sure.

There's a reviewer called DCRainmaker who blogs who goes into quite some depth on these watches and Heart Rate Monitors

I know what LED means!:D I was wondering what the different colours meant.

I'm going to have to do some research I think which is quite annoying as I'm battling through Too Big to Fail. I'm almost halfway through it so far.

kabayiri

I reckon the difference between red and green is down to the wavelength of the light emitted.

You can ensure pretty good consistency of sensors, what you can't control is the sheer variety of skin types and veins people have.

kabayiri

I see in the news that we have a new Milk Tray man.

His job should be easier, given that the box of milk tray is much lighter now than when he was last jumping through windows and off cliffs.

Welcome to new Cadburys, where what you spend on promotion is the key, not where you make your product or what from.

kabayiri

PasturesNew wrote: »

It IS all about marketing. I've always said this.

It doesn't matter what you make, or how good/bad it is - it's how you MARKET it that really makes it sell.

The BEST products don't become the best sellers; it's those with the best marketing that do.

Marketing is how companies like Kookai can flog a single hot tap for £700 or so .... my £5 Asda kettle does just as well at making hot water. Or the nuking box.

Not at the higher end.

Companies like Bentley have to trade on hard won heritage and history. If you buy a Bentley you expect support for the product no matter how many years elapse.

A hifi company : Quad, were famous for offering spare parts for amplifiers built decades ago.

Marketing is king at the consumer fodder end of the market. Cadburys included

kabayiri

I wish they wouldn't keep hyping up vinyl on telly and radio.

It's pushing up second hand prices

Back in the 90s, nobody wanted to know, and those crappy bits of black plastic were left to a small few to hoard.

Message to the kids! Get wise. Record players are RUBBISH (unless you are willing to spend what seems like insane amounts on them).