BioZen Android app captures a wide range of biometric sensor data

The Department of Defense has releasedBioZen, a new mobile app designed to help service members access biofeedback services.

BioZen was developed by T2, The National Center for Telehealth and Technology, as a pilot project to study feasibility of using smartphones to receive signals from biosensor devices, including EEG, ECG, EMG, galvanic skin response (GSR), respiratory rate and temperature data all displayed within a single app.

T2 (@T2Health) bills the application as the first portable, low-cost method for clinicians and patients to use biofeedback both in and out of the clinic. While it may be a stretch to say this is the first such app to hit the market, its certainly the first to come out of a federal government agency. This could mean it will be the first to achieve significant scale as the military is likely to leverage the platform for ambulatory monitoring of all personnel. It also has potential for use by the VA to remotely monitor veterans.

“Mastering biofeedback successfully is difficult and frustrating for many people,” said Dr. David Cooper, T2 psychologist. “This app takes many of the large medical sensors found in a clinic and puts them in the hands of anyone with a smart phone. BioZen makes it easier for anyone to get started with biofeedback.”

At first glance, one thing that jumps out at me about BioZen is the fact that this application will probably be viewed by the current market leader in remote patient monitoring apps, San Diego-based AirStrip Technologies, to be in gross violation of the broad patent the company was awarded last year for the display for patient physiological data on a mobile device. AirStrip has already demonstrated clearly they have the will to defend their intellectual property, so it will be very interesting to see how they would respond were the BioZen app to achieve widespread adoption and threaten the startup’s position at the top of the mHealth market.

While the current focus for BioZen appears to be strictly the consumer or quantified self scene, it’s not a stretch to imagine a medical grade version of the app somewhere in the pipeline.

The application is available only for Android currently and is compatible with several off-the-shelf sensor devices (listed below) available to consumers, ranging in price from $75-150.

Name	Manufacturer	Available Parameters
BioHarness BT	Zephyr-Technology	Heart rate, Respiration Rate, Skin Temp
BrainAthlete	BrianAthlete	(EEG) – Delta,Theta,Low Alpha,High Alpha,Low Beta,High Beta,Low Gamma,Mid Gamma,(e)Attention,(e)Meditation
MindBand	NeuroSky	(EEG) – Delta,Theta,Low Alpha,High Alpha,Low Beta,High Beta,Low Gamma,Mid Gamma,(e)Attention,(e)Meditation
Mindset MS001	NeuroSky	(EEG) – Delta,Theta,Low Alpha,High Alpha,Low Beta,High Beta,Low Gamma,Mid Gamma,(e)Attention,(e)Meditation
Mindwave Mobile	NeuroSky	(EEG) – Delta,Theta,Low Alpha,High Alpha,Low Beta,High Beta,Low Gamma,Mid Gamma,(e)Attention,(e)Meditation
Shimmer2R	Shimmer-Research	ECG, GSR, EMG

BioZen is based on the open source framework Bluetooth Sensor Processing for Android (B-SPAN). Its one of ten applications developed by T2 and available on the organization’s website.