It’s scary to think that something could be wrong with your pet, but the only way you could know for sure is if you take them to a licensed veterinarian. And, you probably won’t take them to a local vet unless your pet displays physical symptoms such as noticeable weight loss or sudden change in behavior.
But with a new technological device that your animal may soon be able to wear, you can have a better understanding of their current state of health without stepping foot into a clinic. It’s pretty neat!
The piece of equipment was designed by researchers from the Imperial College London as the first-ever accurate, wearable, health-tracking device for pets. And, it can get its job done by monitoring your pet through its fur or even through as many as four layers of clothing.
The sensor can do things such as detect pets’ breathing patterns and heart rate.
Not only can this technology come in handy for owners who want to learn about their animals’ health, but it makes the job of a veterinarian just a little bit easier. Thanks to the capabilities of this new device, veterinarians won’t have to shave pets’ fur prior to collect certain information about them.
Although there are already many types of wearable health-monitoring products like these for humans, there are minimal reliable devices like these for animals at present nor are there devices like these that can track health through a pet’s coat. That’s where this product comes in.
Dr. Firat Guder, Lead Author at Imperial College London’s Department of Bioengineering believes wearable devices like these will only gain more popularity as time goes on.
“Wearables are expected to play a major role in monitoring health and detecting diseases early. Our stretchy, flexible invention heralds a whole new type of sensor that can track the health of animals and humans alike over fur or clothing,” he said.
But how does this wearable in particular work?
Yasin Cotur at the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London has a quick way to explain how it operates.
“The sensor works like a watery stethoscope, filling any gaps between it and its subject so that no air bubbles get in and dampen the sound.”
Then when the sound collected gets converted into a digital signal, it gets passed onto a nearby, portable computer, so pet owners and the like can view their pets’ health stats live.
Apart from collecting health-related data, the wearable technology might be able help researchers understand more about sniffer dogs.
Researchers believe that their equipment may be able to collect vital sign data from these dogs to determine how “certain” they are when they come across an object that they’ve been instructed to find (e.g., a bomb, a lost person, etc.). Whether or not the device will accurately determine this is still up in the air.
“The next step is to validate our system further with animals, primarily focusing on sniffer dogs and then horses and livestock later on,” Cotur said.
Although they’re not yet out on the market for purchase, and they’ve only been tested on dogs and humans at the time, you can check out the piece of equipment below.
