In the past few years, wearable technology has become one of the most promising technological fields. Wearable technology, affectionately called wearables, have been consistently becoming more powerful and more useful as the technology develops. For example, the Apple Watch, which is one of the most popular examples of wearable technology, is able to read your heartbeat and access many different applications.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, wearables have been specifically created to help prevent the spread of the virus. The Center of Disease Control (CDC) has said that one of the ways to help prevent the spread of the virus is to stop touching your face. By touching your face, you may be transferring germs from the surfaces you touch to your eyes, nose, ears, or mouth.
In the United Kingdom, a teen decided to create a watch which would help prevent people from touching their face. This watch utilizes unique technology and algorithms to recognize hand gestures and movement. In order to remind people to not touch their face, the watch will vibrate when it recognizes that your hand is moving to touch your face. One downside that this technology has is that one device can only monitor the actions of one hand. The best way to fully prevent people from touching their face is to wear two of the devices, so you are warned when you attempt to use either hand to touch your face.
Similarly, NASA decided to create their own version of a wearable to inform people not to touch their face. NASA’s wearable is a necklace that vibrates when a person’s hand approaches their face. A unique aspect to NASA’s wearable is that it is open source and can be replicated using a 3D printer and parts/files on NASA’s website. This wearable was not intended to be commercially sold instead NASA hopes that individuals or organizations can improve on their open-source design to better ensure that people will not touch their face.
In the future, the potential implementation of wearables in the healthcare field may revolutionize the way we go about preventing the spread of viruses or other illnesses.
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