Ultra-low-cost clinical pulse oximetry

An ultra-low-cost pulse oximeter is presented that interfaces a conventional clinical finger sensor with a mobile phone through the headset jack audio interface. All signal processing is performed using the audio subsystem of the phone. In a preliminary volunteer study in a hypoxia chamber, we compared the oxygen saturation obtained with the audio pulse oximeter against a commercially available (and FDA approved) reference pulse oximeter (Nonin Xpod). Good agreement was found between the outputs of the two devices.