Sinabro: Opportunistic and Unobtrusive Mobile ECG Monitoring System

In this paper, we propose Sinabro, an opportunistic and unobtrusive mobile electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring system that monitors the user’s ECG opportunistically during daily smartphone use. Daily ECG monitoring will open up an unprecedented opportunity for pervasive healthcare applications. It will enable the daily detection and prevention of heart problems and also allow inferences about stress, emotion, and even sleep quality. Despite its huge potential, daily ECG monitoring still has not become reality due to its obtrusiveness. In this paper, we first study the potential opportunity to capture ECGs from daily use of smartphones, without requiring the user’s explicit attention. Based on such an opportunity, we present a prototype ECG sensor that allows neat integration with a smartphone and the Sinabro system to provide ECG-related physiological status. We show the basic feasibility of our approach, based on daily smartphone usage through phone usage analysis and prototype-based experiments.