The problem with most (if not all) of today’s wrist-worn heart rate monitors is that they don’t work when the user is moving around, which is kinda awkward since that’s typically the time when users need to quantify their heart beats.

Researchers at the Seoul National University in Korea are looking to tackle this problem with a flexible electronic patch capable of doing basic ECG monitoring while amplifying and storing the data locally within novel nanocrystal floating gates.

The patch is made of a flexible and stretchable silicon membrane on top of which gold nanoparticles are placed so as to draw the conductive components. This, researchers claim, eliminates conductive films that have their unique limitations while increasing the memory capacity of the device.

The device has been tested on humans undergoing stress tests and the readings correlated with the heart rate measured using traditional methods. It is now, we guess, the time to start commercialization of this technology so we could eventually have it in activity trackers.

A summary video demoing how the skin sensor is produced is below:

[Via: medgadget]