Phoenix Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor Project
Sub-project: Sphygmochron.org $200 Home ABPM kit

Project Description

This page describes a possible project to publish the instructions for hobbyists to build a home ABPM starting with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products, intended to become a part of the Sphygmochron.org website.

The resulting $200 cuff-based home ABPM would be an "interim" product, fitting in time and cost between the current professional $2000+ ABPM and the future nearly-free Phoenix ABPM.  If successful, this project would drive a few hundred people across the United States to put together their own ABPM and submit 7 days of ABPM data from their friends and families to the Sphygmochron.org website, comprising the first home users of the website.

Background

This idea is patterned after "near-open-source" hardware projects I've seen in other technical domains such as astronomy, ham radio, and most recently, manufacturing fabricators (a.k.a. 3-D printers).  In these technical areas, a new technological improvement or cost-reduction attracts the attention of hobbyists who are willing to build versions of a potential new product, share ideas and lessons-learned, publish instructions to other like-minded people, and play the role of early adopters for the potential product.

For example, http://fabathome.org publishes the parts list, assembly instructions, and usage notes for a $2500 fabricator that hobbyists can build in their basements.  They do not sell a physical product - they give away the parts list and assembly instructions in a very convenient form.  Similarly, plans to build and use the "TeRK" robots are given away at http://www.terk.ri.cmu.edu/, but you buy the parts elsewhere at hardware stores and hobbyist outlets.

The "equivalent" product I see for us is to publish the "parts list" and assembly instructions for taking a COTS ABPM, opening it up and wiring in a COTS 30-minute timer, and a computer program to download the data from the ABPM to the user's computer for later submission to the Sphygmochron.org website.

Other Aspects to the Project

This ABPM is not intended to appeal to very many people.  Most likely, the types of teenagers who would have become ham radio, electronics, or astronomy hobbyists in past decades are the ones who would be interested in this project, along with a number of adults with some amount of electrical engineering training.

There is a possibility that, since we are not producing a physical product to be sold, FDA regulations do not apply.  [This needs to be investigated.]

The BIOCOS project gets a large discount on professional ABPMs from A&D, which gets them down to the $450 range (without software).  We know that A&D is interested in the home ABPM market, as they already offer a home device capable of taking a (single) measurement during uninterrupted sleep.  We hope that any progress made on this project will also be of interest to A&D in the pursuit of a common goal to improve community health.  This project shouldn't change their professional ABPM market substantially - doctors and researchers are not normally going to use the cheaper home ABPM because of the lesser quality and lesser durability.  The idea here, from a business perspective, is to create and expand into a new market of home ABPM users.  There should be more profit for A&D, not less.  A&D should have no reason to dislike my proposal.

Once everything is published, some advertising to the potential market is in order.  The potential market reads informal technology-news websites such as slash-dot.  The potential market reads what I'll call geek-oriented gadget-review websites and magazines. These are places where "free" advertising can be had with the right "press release".

Misc. notes

I looked around at a lot of models offered by several manufacturers of intended-for-home monitors, and this one (A&D model UA-767PC) is the best one I've found that has a computer interface and enough memory to be useful as a starting point for a home ABPM.  I also found that A&D responded to my requests for information much better than any other manufacturer of home BPM equipment.

There are variations on this project to be investigated, including

Simplicity of assembly and usage would seem to be a very high priority, to enlarge the market being targeted.

Project Deliverables

Example parts list:

Project work items

What is missing from commercial home blood pressure monitors

Off-the-shelf timers to evaluate

Time-lapse photography remote controls

About This Page

This page is maintained by Larry A. Beaty.  It was last updated on 1 April 2007.

The author(s) provide this information as a public service, and agree to place any novel and useful inventions disclosed herein into the public domain. They are not aware that this material infringes on the patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret rights of others. However, there is a possibility that such infringement may exist without their knowledge. The user assumes all responsibility for determining if this information infringes on the intellectual property rights of others before applying it to products or services.

(C) 2007 Larry A. Beaty. Copying and distribution of this page is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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