This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
BITalino wants to do for the body what Arduino did for electronics. The kit, which costs €149 (£125), includes a set of physiological sensors that can easily detect bio-signals, and software that enables the user to visualise and record data. "We wanted to build a do-it-yourself system to capture human physiology," says Hugo Silva, an electrical engineer at the Instituto de Telecomunicações in Lisbon, Portugal. "Usually, bio-signal-acquisition technologies cost about €10,000-15,000, and platforms such as Arduino don't have the high sampling frequency and precision you need to accurately capture physiological data."
The BITalino kit includes Bluetooth, APIs for different platforms and various sensors: electromyography to track muscle activity; electrodermal to measure skin moisture; ECG; accelerometers and light sensors. They can be used individually or combined. "We've made fun projects using BITalino: we can open the lab door using muscle activity and control the lights using gestures," says Silva, 33. "I'm a fan of LEGO, so we wanted that modular aspect."
BITalino was launched last August and the company already has partnerships with MIT, Stanford University and the University of Florida, where undergraduates are given a kit for lab work in their first year. "Before, only postgraduate students would use bio-signal-capture devices. The equipment was just too expensive," says Silva, who last year was a visiting researcher at the University of Florida. "Now, it's the first thing students use."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
