Development of wearable heatstroke warning system (HeatGuard): Design, validation and controlled-environment testing among triathletes

(Entwicklung eines am Körper tragbaren Hitzschlag-Warnsystems (HeatGuard): Konzeption, Validierung und Tests unter kontrollierten Bedingungen bei Triathleten)

Global warming and increasing heatwaves elevate the risk of exertional heat illnesses, particularly heatstroke, in endurance athletes and outdoor workers. This study developed and validated a wearable heatstroke warning system integrating physiological and environmental monitoring with a real-time web dashboard. The wrist- and finger-worn prototype comprised an ESP32 microcontroller and heart rate (MAX30101), skin temperature (MAX30205), ambient temperature and humidity (SHT31), and galvanic skin response (Grove-GSR v1.2) sensors with dual acoustic-visual alerts and WiFi transmission. Fifteen triathletes (18-39 years) completed 30 min of cycling in a climatic chamber: 0-15 min at 24 ± 1 °C, 70 ± 10% RH, and 16-30 min at 27 ± 1 °C, 90 ± 10% RH, with the workload rising from 40%HRmax by 10% every 10 min. Heart rate, estimated core temperature, ambient temperature, relative humidity, and GSR were recorded every 30 s and compared with standard devices using Spearman correlation (p = 0.01) and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests (p < 0.05). Heart rate, skin temperature (used a linear model to calculate core body temperature), ambient temperature, and humidity sensors showed fair-very good validity (r = 0.692, 0.995, 0.994, 0.952), while GSR was low (r = 0.298). No significant differences were observed for heart rate, skin temperature, and humidity (p > 0.05), but body temperature (p = 0.003) and GSR (p < 0.001) differed. The system showed promising validity for real-time heatstroke risk monitoring, with further refinement needed for skin temperature and GSR sensing.
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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Schlagworte:
Notationen:Biowissenschaften und Sportmedizin Ausdauersportarten
Tagging:Hitze Validität Hitzschlag
Veröffentlicht in:Sensors
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: 2026
Jahrgang:26
Heft:8
Seiten:2556
Dokumentenarten:Artikel
Level:hoch