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Raspberry Pi as part of a wearable system?

GardenState

My first thought on apps for the Raspberry Pi is-- beyond its use as a dev tool or learning system for kids--as a wearable controller for healthcare monitors or other on-body systems (for adults as well as kids). I haven't yet checked the data sheet to look at its power requirements but at first glance it seems to have everything else needed (perhaps excepting a lot of networking options) to run biomedical sensors or drug administering systems. Your thoughts?

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  • I definitely think RPi will be utilized for biosensing projects and the quantified self crowd.  For about the price of an Arduino, you get an orders of magnitude greater processing power while still being able to interface with hardware via GPIO, I2C, SPI, etc.  As both Cabe & you mention, I'm sure there will be a price to pay in terms of battery power but hopefully there will be intelligent ways to fine tune (and I find USB cell phone/table chargers are pretty cheap per mAh and easy to use).

     

    I did an Arduino-based biosensor project with my hackerspace last year and by far the biggest expense was the Bluetooth module we used to transmit data to a computer.  With biosensing, it is critical to have either a opto-isolated or wireless link if there is an external AC-powered system involved.  I thought it was a bummer that the Bluetooth module was so expensive when I knew there are USB Bluetooth adapters for much, much less due to the market volume of regular PC users versus simple embedded projects (which need a serial or SPI interface). 

     

    Because the RPi is a Linux computer, I believe it should be possible to use those lower cost USB Bluetooth and even WiFi adapters.  While not all chipsets will work, I'm sure there will be at least a few models that will be viable. There a ton of older adapter out there: maybe buried in your or a friend's closet, computer store clearance bin, eBay, etc.

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

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  • I definitely think RPi will be utilized for biosensing projects and the quantified self crowd.  For about the price of an Arduino, you get an orders of magnitude greater processing power while still being able to interface with hardware via GPIO, I2C, SPI, etc.  As both Cabe & you mention, I'm sure there will be a price to pay in terms of battery power but hopefully there will be intelligent ways to fine tune (and I find USB cell phone/table chargers are pretty cheap per mAh and easy to use).

     

    I did an Arduino-based biosensor project with my hackerspace last year and by far the biggest expense was the Bluetooth module we used to transmit data to a computer.  With biosensing, it is critical to have either a opto-isolated or wireless link if there is an external AC-powered system involved.  I thought it was a bummer that the Bluetooth module was so expensive when I knew there are USB Bluetooth adapters for much, much less due to the market volume of regular PC users versus simple embedded projects (which need a serial or SPI interface). 

     

    Because the RPi is a Linux computer, I believe it should be possible to use those lower cost USB Bluetooth and even WiFi adapters.  While not all chipsets will work, I'm sure there will be at least a few models that will be viable. There a ton of older adapter out there: maybe buried in your or a friend's closet, computer store clearance bin, eBay, etc.

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

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