Ask HN: Wireless ECG advice?

3 points by patrickryan 15 years ago | 2 comments

I'm working on a wireless ECG system for my senior capstone design project and I'm not sure what direction to take when it comes to software. The idea is to read the ECG signal from the patient, and transmit it wirelessly in real-time to a host computer (laptop for now, Android device/iPhone eventually) for post-processing and visualization. Does anyone have experience with ECG software? Is a web app too slow for this vs. a native desktop app? Any language recommendations?

niels_olson 15 years ago |

Doc here. If you want a trace, then a web app is way to slow. In theory it should be plenty fast, but in practice, the connection is neither reliable, nor fast. Have you asked the guys at Polar? I worked with a Mech E team on a bicycle wheel design; they got the DuPont engineer who designed the original trifoil wheel to help. It would be worth asking. Look up "holter monitor". I'd think there must be some C libraries for this.

patrickryan 15 years ago | |

Thanks for your suggestions! I figured a web app wouldn't be ideal for our needs. Our challenge is that we have to transmit and process up to 12 leads at a time. Most of the products out there today are only using a few ECG leads. We also have to design and build the the actual device that will transmit from the body. It looks like a native Windows app is usually the standard for software in this field of work. Thanks!