Why Can’t All My Sensors Get Along?

Michael Essany | MedCity News | August 29, 2013

From wearable fitness-trackers to sleep-monitoring applications, mobile is the place to go for those looking to improve their health and well-being.

But the persistent lack of interoperability among today’s leading and emerging mobile health technologies has resulted in widespread frustration.

With simplicity at the core of the mobile revolution, it’s easy to understand why so many mobile device owners are irked by solutions that don’t share data to provide a complete 24/7 mobile health platform. People want these products to be capable of monitoring conditions, finding problems, recommending actions, and solving problems from sunrise to sunset.

If you think that sounds far-fetched, consider this: all of the resources consumers need to enjoy such an all-inclusive mHealth (mobile health) program already exist. But their respective makers haven’t yet played nicely together. And with these apps and devices operating independently of one another, fitness-minded consumers have struggled to piecemeal their mobile health solutions into a technological tapestry that makes sense.