What do a doctor do when when he or she want to stand out from the crowd of medical practitioners? Well, there are many ways, but no others stand out like a name card that measures heartbeat and yes, it is something you can actually acquire, but more about it later. Dubbed ‘toy card’ ECG, this novel business card is the creation of Hungary-based open-source ECG equipment maker MobileECG. It appears to be a regular business card from the front, but on the back, you will find a pair of sensors that will pick up your heart rate when two fingers are placed on them (one on each sensor, of course).
The resulting heart rate is displayed instantly on the integrated (but very tiny) monitor. The two sensors measures the real ECG signal between your hands, based on Lead I in Einthoven’s triangle. While it is able to read heart rate fairly accurately, MobileECG is quick to stress that is not a diagnostic device; in fact, it refers to this novel business card as “toy card.”
This ‘toy’ business card is show of the company know-how with respect to developing compact ECG machine and also to generate interest, and hopefully, the public’s interest to the company’s main product. Like the company’s other products, toy card is also open source and if you are interested, you can find the build on github repository and the schematics in pdf is also available freely. Else, you can just pick one up for around 29 bucks.
