Designed by University of Missouri researchers, the device includes AI technology to detect potential heart problems with over 90% accuracy, making it a promising tool for at-home monitoring.
When we move, it’s harder for existing wearable devices to accurately track our heart activity. But University of Missouri researchers found that a starfish’s five-arm shape helps solve this problem.
Inspired by how a starfish flips itself over — shrinking one of its arms and using the others in a coordinated motion to right itself — Sicheng Chen and Zheng Yan in Mizzou’s College of Engineering and collaborators have created a starfish-shaped wearable device that tracks heart health in real time.
Because the starfish-inspired device has multiple points touching the skin near the heart, it stays more stable than traditional wearables built as a single, unified structure, such as a smartwatch. This allows the device to collect clearer, more accurate heart data — even while someone is moving.
Read more at University of Missouri-Columbia
Image: A graphic representation of the starfish-inspired wearable device alongside biological starfish. (Credit: Courtesy of Zheng Yan)
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