4 ms·

Reading some of the press that this has had, it's unfortunate that some things have had a bit too much PR treatment. I'd also tend to disagree with 'immediately

Reading some of the press that this has had, it's unfortunate that some things have had a bit too much PR treatment. I'd also tend to disagree with 'immediately'. We definitely don't expect this to be a silver bullet - it is the first (long overdue) foray into permanent physiological monitoring in F1, which will serve as a blueprint for further sensors and monitoring. We chose SpO2 and motion as the first metrics, as they potentially offer us a lot of value with a single monitoring site.

HorizonXP 9y ago
Alan? Welcome to HN! Can you talk a bit more about how you guys developed this? It sounds like the biometrics sensor you developed was custom-built. When did development start? What kind of support did you get from the FIA, F1, and race teams? How did you guys do your beta testing? I feel like an AMA is in order, and Hacker News is probably the best place to do it. I think a lot of us would also love to hear about your stories being the F1 medical car driver too. Edit: another question. - Why Bluetooth? Even with 500m range, you'd likely need several receivers around the track to ensure coverage. Furthermore, how reliable is it among the various sources of RF interference around the track? I'd like to hear more about this, because we've done some development with low-power long-range wireless devices, and Bluetooth was never considered a possibility. Maybe your constraints are different, or you guys know something I don't.
- avdmerwe 9y ago
  Thanks! Strange to be posting, as I've been reading HN for years. As with most things, this turned out to be more complex than we initially thought. The regulations in F1 meant that there were no off-the-shelf options for sensors. That, together with the fact that we needed to make things at low volumes, and potentially custom for drivers, meant that we had to develop the sensor ourselves. Fire rating and interaction with other safety systems on the car dictated a lot of our design choices. The FIA has been instrumental in making this happen, as they are constantly trying to improve safety. Testing something like this at F1 races was challenging, as teams have less and less time to get their car development done. Everyone has been very supportive of the idea though, as teams always want more data! Most drivers have done a decent amount of track time last year with various versions of the sensors, and we've chosen a design which ticks the most boxes. It is still very early days however, and I'm sure we'll have improved in almost all areas (comfort, performance & integration into clothing) by the end of the year. The device we've developed can be used on many sites on the body, but for now the glove presents the 'easiest' to implement across the various clothing manufacturers. Further down the line, we'll probably fit more things in the earpieces, but this will require more than just anecdotal evidence as to what happens with the earpieces during large impacts. We want this data to be available in the most extreme cases. So although the ear would be a great place for SpO2 99% of the time when all is well, we don't know enough about how the sensor would interact with the sacrificial systems (helmet, head rest) in the accidents we'd most want this to work. Bluetooth: I personally feel that the BLE standard is heading in the right direction for our use case, looking at the 5.0 standard and onwards. Lots of the current limitations will be solved by wider industry, instead of us having to do the legwork. Each car will have an on-car receiver which drops the data onto existing telemetry systems. In many cases, these systems are no longer functional after large accidents (antenna gets knocked off, car powered off etc), so we'd like to access the data with consumer devices in the worst cases. We already have iPads mounted in the car for other data, so BLE is the best candidate for now. RF interference is actually also a reason we chose BLE: the 2.4GHz band is relatively quiet at race tracks, as most systems are in the higher bands these days. I'd happily do an AMA, not sure how best to go about it though.
  - JshWright 9y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, what's your technical background? You seem well versed in the technical side of things (plus, you read HN!). I had kind of assumed your background was mostly racing. BTW, I really enjoyed the Medical Car feature on formula1.com last year. I moonlight as a paramedic, and as part of that I'm often an ambulance driving instructor. Your quote about having some "capacity in reserve" is something I incorporate in my teaching now.
    - avdmerwe 9y ago
      Although I've spent the majority of my professional life driving around in circles, I have always been interested in technology, and worked in IT before I started racing professionally. Learning about materials, electronics, and manufacturing have been mainly through trial and error over the past 2 years, and working with some very talented people in their respective fields. Great to hear that there's been some value in something I've said in an interview!
      - HorizonXP 9y ago
        Alan, if you put your email in your profile, or email me at mine, we can get in touch with the HN mods and get an AMA together. I think it’s really worth doing.
JshWright 9y ago
I totally agree that SpO2 is the obvious first choice to prove out this system, and I think it's a great idea in general. It's easy to measure, and provides useful physiological information (particularly as trend data). I was just quibbling with "immediately". I agree with HorizonXP that it would be fascinating to learn more about this system (and F1 safety in general) from someone with a lot of first hand knowledge. Thanks for stopping by and adding to the discussion!

HorizonXP 9y ago

Alan? Welcome to HN! Can you talk a bit more about how you guys developed this? It sounds like the biometrics sensor you developed was custom-built. When did development start? What kind of support did you get from the FIA, F1, and race teams? How did you guys do your beta testing? I feel like an AMA is in order, and Hacker News is probably the best place to do it. I think a lot of us would also love to hear about your stories being the F1 medical car driver too. Edit: another question. - Why Bluetooth? Even with 500m range, you'd likely need several receivers around the track to ensure coverage. Furthermore, how reliable is it among the various sources of RF interference around the track? I'd like to hear more about this, because we've done some development with low-power long-range wireless devices, and Bluetooth was never considered a possibility. Maybe your constraints are different, or you guys know something I don't.

avdmerwe 9y ago
Thanks! Strange to be posting, as I've been reading HN for years. As with most things, this turned out to be more complex than we initially thought. The regulations in F1 meant that there were no off-the-shelf options for sensors. That, together with the fact that we needed to make things at low volumes, and potentially custom for drivers, meant that we had to develop the sensor ourselves. Fire rating and interaction with other safety systems on the car dictated a lot of our design choices. The FIA has been instrumental in making this happen, as they are constantly trying to improve safety. Testing something like this at F1 races was challenging, as teams have less and less time to get their car development done. Everyone has been very supportive of the idea though, as teams always want more data! Most drivers have done a decent amount of track time last year with various versions of the sensors, and we've chosen a design which ticks the most boxes. It is still very early days however, and I'm sure we'll have improved in almost all areas (comfort, performance & integration into clothing) by the end of the year. The device we've developed can be used on many sites on the body, but for now the glove presents the 'easiest' to implement across the various clothing manufacturers. Further down the line, we'll probably fit more things in the earpieces, but this will require more than just anecdotal evidence as to what happens with the earpieces during large impacts. We want this data to be available in the most extreme cases. So although the ear would be a great place for SpO2 99% of the time when all is well, we don't know enough about how the sensor would interact with the sacrificial systems (helmet, head rest) in the accidents we'd most want this to work. Bluetooth: I personally feel that the BLE standard is heading in the right direction for our use case, looking at the 5.0 standard and onwards. Lots of the current limitations will be solved by wider industry, instead of us having to do the legwork. Each car will have an on-car receiver which drops the data onto existing telemetry systems. In many cases, these systems are no longer functional after large accidents (antenna gets knocked off, car powered off etc), so we'd like to access the data with consumer devices in the worst cases. We already have iPads mounted in the car for other data, so BLE is the best candidate for now. RF interference is actually also a reason we chose BLE: the 2.4GHz band is relatively quiet at race tracks, as most systems are in the higher bands these days. I'd happily do an AMA, not sure how best to go about it though.
- JshWright 9y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, what's your technical background? You seem well versed in the technical side of things (plus, you read HN!). I had kind of assumed your background was mostly racing. BTW, I really enjoyed the Medical Car feature on formula1.com last year. I moonlight as a paramedic, and as part of that I'm often an ambulance driving instructor. Your quote about having some "capacity in reserve" is something I incorporate in my teaching now.
  - avdmerwe 9y ago
    Although I've spent the majority of my professional life driving around in circles, I have always been interested in technology, and worked in IT before I started racing professionally. Learning about materials, electronics, and manufacturing have been mainly through trial and error over the past 2 years, and working with some very talented people in their respective fields. Great to hear that there's been some value in something I've said in an interview!
    - HorizonXP 9y ago
      Alan, if you put your email in your profile, or email me at mine, we can get in touch with the HN mods and get an AMA together. I think it’s really worth doing.

JshWright 9y ago

I totally agree that SpO2 is the obvious first choice to prove out this system, and I think it's a great idea in general. It's easy to measure, and provides useful physiological information (particularly as trend data). I was just quibbling with "immediately". I agree with HorizonXP that it would be fascinating to learn more about this system (and F1 safety in general) from someone with a lot of first hand knowledge. Thanks for stopping by and adding to the discussion!