A low-cost IoT-based health monitoring platform enriched with social networking facilities

The use of distant health monitoring solutions is consciously increasing nowadays exploiting the advancements in modern technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile networking and pervasive communication. Already in cases of chronic disease management the regular use of mHealth and telemonitoring approaches is very common facilitating the constant patient monitoring and enabling the use of innovative features for patients, medical experts and caregivers. Remote communication is essential as it allows the prevention or/and the precise treatment of patients. The power efficiency-, the computing capabilities and the affordability of modern biosignals sensors, portable computing machines and IoT devices allows for the development of advanced and compelling solutions in the area of mHealth and patient telemonitoring. This work presents a low-cost, IoT enabled, home monitoring solution, as part of a dedicated communication and social networking platform, which provides wireless and automated collection and storage of biosignals received from sensors. The proposed solution provides also remote communication and monitoring via a dedicated social network, which enables real-time videoconferencing and data exchange.