Nature Communications<\/a> showed. <\/p>\nCurrent wearables are tight to the skin, measuring raw movement and vital signs, and converting them into more concrete metrics such as steps, calories, or sleep stages. <\/p>\n
The researchers have debunked the common belief that if a sensor is loose, the data will be \u201cnoisy\u201d or messy. In fact, loose, flowing clothing makes motion tracking significantly more accurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeaning, we could move away from ‘wearable tech’ that feels like medical equipment and toward ‘smart clothing’ – like a simple button or pin on a dress – that tracks your health while you feel completely natural going about your day,\u201d said Matthew Howard, co-author of the paper and reader in engineering at King\u2019s College London. <\/p>\n
He added that when someone moves their arm, a loose sleeve doesn\u2019t just sit there; it folds and moves, reacting more sensitively than a tighter-fitting sensor.<\/p>\n
The team at King\u2019s College tested sensors on different fabrics, using both human and robot subjects doing a variety of movements. <\/p>\n
They compared the findings from loose fabrics with standard motion sensors attached to straps and tight clothing and found that the fabric-based approach detected movements more quickly, more accurately, and with less data.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that the sensor accuracy was not affected by its location in the clothes or the distance from where the fabric touches the body.<\/p>\n
Accurate for subtle movements<\/p>\n
Sensors in looser clothes could also help sense small movements that current wearables often miss, such as Parkinson’s tremors. <\/p>\n
\u201cThrough this approach, we could \u2018amplify\u2019 people\u2019s movement, which will help capture them even when they are smaller than typical abled-bodied movements,\u201d said Irene Di Giulio, co-author of the study at King\u2019s College. <\/p>\n
She added that this could allow tracking people from their own homes or care homes while in their everyday clothing by adding the sensor to buttons on shirts. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt could become easier for doctors to monitor their patients, as well as medical researchers to gather vital data needed to inform our understanding of these conditions and develop new therapies, including wearable technologies that cater for these kinds of disabilities,\u201d Di Giulio said. <\/p>\n
Limitations of current trackers<\/p>\n
Current wearables have proven useful for measuring steps and movement during exercise; however, they have limitations in clinical metrics, such as heart rate variability, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. <\/p>\n
Recent research<\/a> has found that wearables such as Apple Watches accurately measure heartbeats at rest; however, they show inconsistency and large errors in measuring energy expenditure \u2013 especially during activity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most health and fitness trackers take the form of a strap around the wrist or the body. But…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":591236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[38],"tags":[1728,37767,1198,210,3740,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-591235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-exercise","tag-fitbit","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-medical-research","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116073435255053038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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