A Portable Wearable Tele-ECG Monitoring System

This paper introduces a wearable Tele-ECG and heart rate (HR) monitoring system which has a novel architecture including a stretchable singlet redesigned with textile electrodes (TEs), textile threads, snap fasteners, Velcro, sponges, and an ECG circuit. In addition, a Bluetooth low energy (BLE), a smartphone, a server, and a web page have been added to the system for remote monitoring. The TE can be attached to and removed from the singlet by a Velcro, which allows the user to dry-clean the TE easily for long-term use. A new holter-based ECG system has been designed to evaluate the TE-based ECG system and the average correlation between the recorded ECG signals is obtained as 99.23%. A filtered digital signal, with a high signal-to-noise ratio of 45.62 dB, is transmitted to the smartphone via BLE. The ECG signal is plotted, the HR is calculated with 1.83% mean absolute percentage error, and displayed. The data are sent to the server, allowing the patient's physician to analyze the signals in real time through the web page or the smartphone. If HR reaches beyond the normal range or user presses the “HELP” button on the smartphone screen, the physician is informed automatically by an short message service (SMS) with a location pin on the map. The battery lasts approximately 14 days and when it needs replacement, the system automatically alerts the users by an SMS and a flashing LED. This fast and uninterrupted telemonitoring system has the potential to improve the patient's life quality by providing a psychological reassurance.