Experience: Design, Development and Evaluation of a Wearable Device for mHealth Applications.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Biomedical Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Wrist-worn devices offer a convenient platform for mobile health (mHealth) applications.
• Limitations in battery, storage, bandwidth, computing power, and screen size hinder wearable device potential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of Amulet, an open-hardware and open-software wrist-worn computing device.
• To share experiences and lessons learned from deploying mHealth applications using the Amulet system in real-world settings.

Main Methods:

• Development of the Amulet open-hardware, open-software wrist-worn computing device.
• Conducted 11 studies (lab and field) over five years with 204 participants.
• Collected over 77,780 hours of sensor data from mHealth applications deployed on Amulet.

Main Results:

• Identified and documented technical challenges encountered during the Amulet system's development and deployment.
• Gathered extensive sensor data, providing insights into wearable mHealth application performance.
• Formulated practical recommendations based on research and development experiences.

Conclusions:

• The Amulet project provides valuable insights into developing and deploying mHealth applications on wearable platforms.
• Lessons learned and recommendations can guide future research in open-hardware/software wearable computing.
• The findings are applicable to researchers developing mHealth apps on Amulet or other wearable systems.