Methods and systems may provide for receiving a physiological signal from a sensor configuration associated with a mobile device. A qualitative analysis may be conducted for each of a plurality of noise sources in the physiological signal to obtain a corresponding plurality of qualitative ratings. In addition, at least the plurality of qualitative ratings may be used to determine whether to report the physiological signal to a remote location. In one example, a quantitative analysis is conducted for each of the plurality of noise sources to obtain an overall quality level, wherein the overall quality level is also used to determine whether to report the physiological signal to the remote location.