T-Sense
What is T-Sense?
Mental disorders, particularly anxiety disorders and mood disorders, are associated with significant loss in quality of life. Elitac Wearables and 2M Engineering have joined forces to develop a smart wearable, which monitors (accumulating) stress and promptly informs the wearer and healthcare providers about it. This project is funded by the Provincie Utrecht.
Imagine a wearable that transcends norms, embedding innovative wearable sensors measuring Heart Rate Variability, Heart Rate, breathing pattern, Electrodermal Activity, temperature, sweat, and more into textiles. Depending on the patient’s indication, they can be informed about stress build-up using haptic feedback technology, or the healthcare provider (or someone from the immediate environment) can directly contact the patient to calm them down either via phone or by quickly being present.
Our goal is to create comfortable, reliable wearable technology, for everyday use. Even by more delicate user groups.
Interested in developing a health care wearable with us? Get in touch!
Mental Health
Over 4 in 10 individuals of the Dutch population have experienced one or more mental disorders at some point in their lives. Anxiety disorders are the most common main group, with depression being the most prevalent among all individual disorders. Nearly every mental disorder related to anxiety disorders and/or depression is distinct and requires a separate approach.
Why T-Sense?
The development of a smart wearable for this target group is highly desired. Practical experiences, including those in mental healthcare, demonstrate the enormity of the issues. Uncontrollable stress and resulting anger outbursts lead to extremely high societal costs. Early recognition of escalating stress levels is crucial to prevent escalations.
The idea is that the smart wearable measures the stress build-up in an early stage. The caretaker, or the patient themselves can calm down in time to prevent an anger outburst or breakdown.
T-Sense project goals
Project result:
- A working prototype of a smart wearable with haptic feedback for people with mental disorders, so the stress build-up can be identified at the earliest stage possible.
- The prototype is equipped with imperceptible sensors that can monitor and record the patient’s bio signals.
Project Results
The T-Sense project resulted in a shirt that is durable and washable. It has integrated electrodes for measuring Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Breathing Pattern and Electrodermal Activity. TThe typical measurement locations such as hands and feet were not accessible, which posed a challenge for this project.
Heart Rate And Variability: Insights from the Smart Shirt
The image shows heart rate measured by the smart shirt. Heart rate is determined by identifying peaks in the signal. The time between heart beats varies, which is called the heart rate variability (HRV).
A low HRV combined with significant fluctuations may suggest instability in autonomic nervous system regulation. This can be a result from stress or mental health conditions like anxiety or depression. Analysing heart rate and HRV together gives valuable insights into your mood, stress levels, and overall well-being.
Monitoring Breathing Pattern
The shirt can accurately measure your breathing pattern. The image on the right illustrates a healthy breathing pattern at rest.
Changes in breathing, such as increased respiratory rate, irregular patterns, or increased amplitude may indicate stress, anxiety or possible underlying health conditions. Your breathing can provide valuable insights into your well-being.
Tracking Emotional Responses with Electrodermal Activity
The smart shirt is equipped with special sensors that measure Electrodermal Activity (EDA). This signal is influence by tiny changes in skin conductance due to sweating. EDA provides insights into emotional arousal and stress levels.
To test this we have used a well-known method: the startle reflex. A natural response to a sudden stimuli like a loud noise. Our measurements from the shirt closely matched those from finger sensors, confirming accuracy.
In multiple 15-minutes tests with 8 startle events, both the shirt’s sensors and reference sensors on the fingers detected clear reactions showing the shirt measured stress responses in real time.
Research consortium partners
Elitac Wearables focuses on developing wearables based on electronics integrated in textiles. Elitac Wearables works as a wearable development partner specialising on the product development, haptic feedback design and integration, electronic hardware development, integration of electronics into textile, prototyping and the coordination and scaling of production of the final product. Elitac Wearables typically partners with organisations active in specific niche markets to commercialise the technology and wearables developed. Elitac Wearables sells standard, off-the-shelf haptic feedback R&D and rapid prototyping hardware and custom-made tactile displays. This hardware is used by universities, research centres and commercial organisations worldwide. Elitac Wearables develops all software and hardware for this product in house and values its relationships with suppliers to be able to manufacture new high-quality products rapidly.
2M Engineering Limited is a high-tech SME based in North Brabant. The company boasts a multidisciplinary team comprising 15 employees with diverse backgrounds, including software/hardware engineers, biomedical engineers, and mechanical engineers. 2M specializes in developing innovative sensor (hardware) solutions for various companies and organizations. Their mission is to develop technologies and products that contribute to a healthier and more sustainable world.
2M’s sensor product development service offers end-to-end solutions and products. Their expertise in miniaturization, embedded algorithms, and low-power optimization aids in creating reliable multifunctionality in applications for healthcare, fitness, navigation, and more. Integrated medical certification capabilities make 2M an ideal partner for medtech product developers and scaling operations.
Specializing in the development of Photonic Medical Devices, Professional Wearables, and High-Tech industrial sensor solutions, 2M serves a diverse clientele ranging from large multinational corporations and hospitals to startups. They support these clients in their efforts to meet the ever-evolving technological demands of their respective industries.
Current status
The T-Sense project started in March 2023 and ended in March 2025. The project started with interviewing care takers to get a complete vision for the Smart Wearable. This resulted in the idea to place the measurement system in a shirt. In-house test and multiple proof-of-concept prototypes resulted in a working system. User comfort, signal acquisition and sensor accuracy are optimised. The outcome is a shirt that measures important factors for stress on the body.
Contact us
To discover more about our product development services for wearable health care devices and explore how they can benefit your needs, please leave your details in the form. We will get back to you as soon as possible.