But remaining well away from Seventh Avenue*. A new unit, AT&T Emerging Devices, will be selling clothes that track the wearer’s heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs, then upload the results to a web portal. Not only that, but tracking devices are making it to the ‘wall’ in AT&T stores: recently launching an ‘Amber Alert’ child tracking device, Garmin’s ‘GTU 10′ GPS locator and a personal monitoring device from BlueLibris designed for senior citizens. Biotracking garments are hot right now, with the Nuubo t-shirt and Nyx Devices Somnus sleep shirt, among others. AT&T is also getting into the act with the car companies in safety (good) and the amusingly coined ‘infotainment’ (bad distraction). Forbes.com: AT&T Plans To Sell Health-Tracking Clothing
* The legendary NYC home of US fashion (now mostly legend itself).
I have to say this interesting and I wonder if the mainstreaming of Telehealth will not gain traction from the adoption of lifestyle monitoring of the fit & well health conscious amongst us. Jawbone will be launching their new wristworn product in the next few days which links with apps on the iphone and android devices. [url]http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/14/jawbone-app-wristband[/url]
This is all good news as the more popular and accessible these healthy lifestyle devices become, the faster we will see disruptive technologies and innovative ideas fuel and benefit the historical (sic) Telecare and Telehealth markets. I’ll likely buy the Jawbone product myself or at least put it on my Christmas list and leave it to Santa to decide if I’ve been naughty or nice this year! 🙂
Here’s a link to another review of the Jawbone device and app, this time on GizMag:
[url]http://www.gizmag.com/jawbone-up-activity-monitor/20401/[/url]
Although this is a ‘lifestyle’ (i.e. food, exercise and sleep) monitoring product, the technology surely has implications for telecare and telehealth monitoring.