ENACT is making steady progress on its wearable device for physiological monitoring, a key component in understanding how environmental exposures affect human health in everyday life.
Developed by researchers from ETRO-Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), the device is designed to continuously and discreetly monitor physiological signals while participants go about their daily routines. Combined with environmental sensing devices developed within ENACT, this wearable will help generate new insights into how factors such as air quality, noise, and temperature interact with the human body.
A research-focused wearable for real-life conditions
The ENACT wearable is a non-invasive, multimodal, and secure device designed to be worn by volunteers, including both adults and children, depending on the study context defined for ENACT’s pilot sites. Participants will wear the device during their normal daily activities, enabling researchers to capture physiological responses in real-world conditions.
Unlike most commercial wearables, which typically focus on simplified health or fitness indicators, the ENACT device is designed as a research platform. It collects high-quality physiological signals with precise timing, allowing for advanced scientific analysis.
The system records multiple signals simultaneously using a shared, high-precision time base. This ensures accurate synchronisation between signals—an essential feature for studying relationships between physiological processes, such as cardiovascular and respiratory dynamics.
What makes this wearable different
A key strength of the ENACT wearable lies in its ability to go beyond standard consumer devices.
Rather than providing only processed indicators, the system records raw physiological data, along with time references and events. This allows researchers to fully reconstruct and validate the data, as well as develop and test new analytical methods.
The device is also designed with a flexible and modular architecture, both in terms of hardware and embedded software. This means that acquisition settings, operating modes, and processing approaches can be adapted depending on the specific research needs. In contrast, most commercial wearables operate as closed systems with limited configurability.
In addition, the wearable includes local data storage and offline functionality, removing the need for continuous connectivity to external devices such as smartphones. This makes it particularly suitable for long-term monitoring in real-life conditions, including during sleep or daily activities.
Measuring the body in detail
The wearable acquires several types of physiological signals, which can be used to derive a wide range of health-related parameters.
Currently, the system records:
- Electrical cardiovascular activity (ECG)
- Optical signals related to blood flow (PPG)
- Skin temperature
- Body movement (acceleration)
From these raw signals, researchers can estimate key indicators such as:
- Heart rate
- Respiratory rate
- Physical activity levels
- Heart rate variability and other cardiovascular markers
Importantly, the number of parameters is not fixed. Because the device captures raw data, new indicators can be derived through improved processing algorithms. While no additional sensors are planned for the final prototype, further algorithm development is expected to enhance signal quality and enable more reliable estimations.
Progress towards a robust and reliable system
The current prototype has been designed as a flexible platform, with multiple units already manufactured and used for testing under different experimental conditions.
Recent work has focused on improving the device’s embedded software, including extensive refactoring to enhance maintainability and prepare for the final release. Long-duration acquisition tests, lasting more than 24 hours, have been carried out to validate key aspects such as data integrity, synchronisation across sensors, and system stability.
Memory and storage management have also been improved, ensuring that large volumes of data can be reliably recorded and later extracted for analysis. At the same time, system power consumption has been significantly reduced, contributing to longer and more practical monitoring sessions.
Supporting ENACT’s exposomic approach
The wearable plays a central role in ENACT’s exposomic approach, which aims to understand how the totality of environmental exposures influences human health.
By combining physiological data from the wearable with environmental measurements collected through other ENACT devices, researchers can analyse how external factors affect the body in real time. These insights will contribute to improved disease risk prediction and a better understanding of how environmental conditions shape health outcomes over time.
Next steps towards the final prototype
The development process continues to follow an iterative approach, with ongoing improvements in performance, robustness, and usability.
The next steps include:
- Further optimisation of firmware and long-term acquisition capabilities
- Continued improvements in power efficiency and fault handling
- Final validation of extended monitoring workflows
- Selection of the final enclosure, balancing integration, comfort, and measurement reliability
The final versions of the wearable, adapted to the different use cases within the project, are expected to be ready by June 2026.
Looking ahead
As ENACT moves closer to deploying its wearable in real-world studies, the device is set to become a key tool in advancing research on the link between environment and health.
By enabling continuous, high-quality monitoring in everyday settings, the ENACT wearable will help bridge the gap between environmental exposure and physiological response, bringing researchers one step closer to understanding and ultimately preventing environment-related diseases.