Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

Microsoft EventHubApp, Raspberri ANT+ MQTT development, Apple health auto export app, Open source smartwatch and other solutions to solve our long-term problem to access our heart rate in an easy way

Last Updated on January 8, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Can we trust Lybron Sobers Apple Health auto exports on the long term and choose his app as a basis for our project? Lybron Sobers did many educations, often changed his profession:

and developed 2 iPhone apps. But we prefer to have an open source project with as little as possible control of other manufacturers over our project.

It is easier to access sensor data from an Apple watch than from a Garmin watch. The longer a device is on the market, the stronger seems to be the control of the manufacturer over the devices, as the example of the Garmin watch shows. Although we were studying this subjects with many devices, apps and demos, we still don t have an easy solution. The problem seem to be consumer grade devices controlled by the manufacturer.

But what is about an Open Source smart watch? How to Electronics from India calls the Open Source smartwatch a watch for electronics engineers to perform experiments:

We aren t electronics engineers, and we don t want to become one to access sensor data from a device or a watch. Also Apple watches are not Open Source smartwatches. And as the example of Android phones shows, a device suddenly can be controlled strongly and limited by the manufacturer to make money out of it.

We have here options for own developments for devices:

for optical sensors, there are device example available, which show the heart rate on Arduino, for ECG, we have examples which show the raw data on Arduino.

But we don t want to built an Arduino project. But from an Arduino project, the step is not that big to an open source project as for instance OpenBCI, where more options for development are available.