The Ultimate Quantified–Self Device Already Exists: A Defibrillator

Heart patients already have the holy grail of the quantified–self movement running inside of them. If only they had access to the data.

The wearables industry is booming, but no one has yet come up with the killer product: an unobtrusive, comfortable device that measures a wide range of health data, from activity levels and heart rates to blood pressure and sleep patterns. While quantified–self nuts wait for this killer product, one segment of the population––heart failure patients that have implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs)––already has just such a device available to tap into. If only they had the data. Even though implantable cardiac defibrillators have the capability of measuring everything described above and more, only doctors have access to the information held inside.

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