Hi everyone,
I’m entering a device idea in the Cisco IoT challenge. If you like it, and it goes to market, that means lots of sales for Electric Imp. 
Plus, it’s a great idea.
https://iotchallenge.cisco.spigit.com/permalink/2014/06/11/circuitflower_blanket_1
Sheep, there are a number of us who are also interested in monitoring sensors like a heart rate sensor. Have you found one that works well? I’ve worked with the Pulse Sensor Amped, but its results are poor at best.
@beardedinventor thanks!
@MakeDeck I’m also using the Pulse Sensor Amped. I got excellent results when I used it on myself, but horrible results when I tried using it with other people. Part of the R&D will include testing the heart rate sensor on a variety of people, and possibly developing something new, if needed. I really think it’s user error that gets bad results. I’m also open to something like a stethoscope that sits on the heart area, and translates the sound into heartbeat patterns.
That’s great! I’d love to hear more about how you attach the sensor, and code if you have any. I’ve been able to get occasional decent results on my finger, but it was pretty finicky.
Oh, and just a weird little fact, I can hear my heartbeat in my left ear, so it made it really easy to set up the sensor. I knew it was working properly because I had that internal feedback that matched the external feedback.
@Sheep - if you’re interested, you could also submit a pull request against our reference library with your code added to the hardware section. We’re hoping to build out the reference library as the goto place for imp code
Here’s a link to my github project
I’ve discovered that the sensor is really sensitive to pressure. You really can’t use too much, and the clip tends to apply too much pressure.
@beardedinventor I found your page on github, is that where I submit the pull request? Or is there an electric imp profile I should pull from.
oh, and for anyone interested, I made this little html demo.
http://circuitflower.com/circuitFlower.html I’ve got it connected to my finger while I work, so if you wanna see it live, you’ve got about an hour.
My last post has a link to it (that was apparently broken)… It’s fixed now, but here’s the link:
OK, I think its done.
@sheep
you should remove your unique imp ID from the GIT and the Source-Code of your html demo page.
thanks. I took it out.
Theoretical… Is it really that big of a deal if someone has (read only) access to my heart beat? Though I guess someone could do a lot more with access to my IMP ID.
If someone has your agent URL they can spam it… might not matter if you have a securely written agent API, but you would see lots of bogus requests coming in.
@MakeDeck I’ve been testing the heart rate sensor on different people. You are right, the fingertip is the way to go. It works very well. I have it working on other people now. If the heart were to beat like drum tabulation, it might sound like a1 a2 a3 a4. Right now, with the threshold set at 30,000, it will pick up those faint a’s. With the threshold set at 35000, I’m getting a very clean 1 2 3 4. I suppose in the testing phase it will matter which version babies respond to. I’m also considering a bidirectional heart beat, so that mom can feel the baby’s heart beat, calming any SIDs worries. I’m wondering if baby feet are even remotely transparent enough to use the sensor.
I’m not a cardiologist or a drummer, but I do admire your implication that those fields should be working more closely together
Peter