Australian Firefighters Testing Pills to Monitor Biometrics
A new swallowable pill is being trialed with 50 firefighters in Australia, aimed at monitoring body temperatures and other vital readings while working in extreme conditions, according to a report from Engadget.
The Equivital’s EQ02 LifeMonitor capsule transmits metrics to a device housed on the chest, which then sends data on skin temperature, heart rate and respiration rate to an external computer, the article says. If the firefighter’s core body temperature is increasing too quickly, he or she could be moved from the frontline to a recovery area to hopefully reduce the number of accidents and deaths caused by heat exhaustion, the article says.