Wearable technologies are gaining momentum and widespread diffusion. Thanks to devices such as activity trackers, in form of bracelets, watches, or anklets, the end-users are becoming more and more aware of their daily activity routine, posture, and training and can modify their motor-behavior. Activity trackers are prevalently based on inertial sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes. Loads we bear with us and the interface pressure they put on our body also affect posture. A contact interface pressure sensing wearable would be beneficial to complement inertial activity trackers. What is precluding force sensing resistors (FSR) to be the next best seller wearable? In this paper, we provide elements to answer this question. We build an FSR based on resistive material (Velostat) and printed conductive ink electrodes on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate; we test its response to pressure in the range 0–2.7 kPa. We present a state-of-the-art review, filtered by the need to identify technologies adequate for wearables. We conclude that the repeatability is the major issue yet unsolved.

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Wearable devices enable the unobtrusive sensing of a wide range of human activities and the development of innovative applications. Wireless communication capabilities are one of the crucial features of networked wearable devices, since they set data exchange specifications and heavily affect the power consumption of the devices. In this paper, we investigate the use of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard for the development of wearable devices with elevated data throughput requirements such as Health-related applications. In particular, we focus on the application-level and analyze the performance of different BLE modules when interfaced with a smartphone in single-and multislave configurations. Data throughput and power consumption are evaluated in relation to the parameters of the protocol and we present to the reader useful guidelines for an optimal integration of BLE in devices with data streaming capabilities.978-1-4799-8981-2/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

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