Intra-Oral Device Detects Opioid Overdose

As you may have heard, the U.S. is in the grips of an opioid epidemic. Overdose deaths from heroin, oxycontin, and fentanyl have quadrupled since 1999. The key to detecting opioid overdose before it’s too late is in monitoring respiration. Opioids in particular cause depressed respiration, which is slow and ineffective breathing that’s inadequate for the gas exchange that keeps us alive. Depressed respiration becomes fatal unless the patient is given nalaxone, an antidote that works by blocking opioid receptors in the brain.

[Curt White] is developing an intra-oral device to prevent opioid overdose via early detection. It tracks a patient’s inhale/exhale rate and sends the data over Bluetooth to an open-source website.  The tiny device uses an air pressure sensor, a humidity sensor, and a thermopile thermometer to accurately track a person’s full respiration waveform whether their mouth is open or closed. The brain is one of [Curt]’s hacked $35 activity trackers that we told you about a few days ago.

All of the hardware including the battery is embedded in a custom retainer made from thermoplastic. [Curt] used Tyvek and surgical tape to isolate the air pressure sensor. Both are waterproof and breathable, which means that air can get to the sensor, but not saliva. Hold your breath and click past the break to watch [Curt] demonstrate this amazing tool on himself.

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Building An LED Suit

[Rob] has been hard at work designing and building this LED suit which he can wear to parties. He’s got it working, although right now it’s just a pair of pants. It reacts to sound, and has the potential to be controlled from a smartphone via Bluetooth. You’ll find a video description of the build embedded after the break.

The planning started off by selecting driver hardware for the LEDs. [Rob] wanted the suit to pulse to the music in the room so he grabbed an MSGEQ7 chip. When connected to a microphone and opamp this chip will output a signal which can be used as a VU meter. He built the hardware into an Arduino shield, then got to work on the LED driver board. He’s using LED strips, but they’re not individually addressable. Instead he cut loops which wrap around the wearer’s legs. Each loop connects the pins of a TLC5947 LED driver chip which sinks a constant current and offers PWM abilities. He’s using PNP transistors on the high side.

For anyone that’s ever worked in a Tyvek suit before you’ll know they don’t breathe. Sweat will literally be pouring off of you. And we’d bet that’s what cause the short that burned the back of [Rob’s] leg at a recent party. Then again, your light-up pimp coats are going to be hot to wear too.

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