Development of a IoT Based Low Cost Wearable Smart Health Monitoring System for Elderly

With the advancement of technology, Internet of Things was applied in many different sectors included healthcare sector. This paper presented the development of a smart health monitoring system including a wearable device and a mobile application, MyHealth. The wearable device consisted of a low-cost integrated pulse and oxygen saturation sensor (MAX30102), a temperature sensor (LM35), a Bluetooth-embedded microcontroller (NodeMCU-ESP32-Dev-Kit) and other components to solve the problem of insufficient healthcare resources for the elderly. The developed wearable device was able to connect to the MyHealth application via Bluetooth Low Energy to measure and monitor the pulse rate, oxygen saturation and body temperature. The application will notify the concerned one if the parameters go abnormal and allows authorised people to access to the health parameter from the application. Besides, this paper discussed the calibration of the system with commercial medical devices as reference. The health monitoring system was tested by the several peoples including an elder and was able to provide pulse rate with a promising accuracy of 6 beats-per-minutes, oxygen saturation with an accuracy of 1% and body temperature with an accuracy of 1.3°Celsius when compared to the commercial products with a higher price range. This paper showed the potential of implement Internet of Things in healthcare sector with low cost. It can promote the usage of Internet of Things in community and improve the quality of life of elderly. Furthermore, this system can raise the public awareness to pay more attention to the health condition and needs of the elderly.