In 2020, innovation is one of the few things that is saving lives and returning us to a new normal. We contemplated how we can contribute to these innovations and we believe that we have come up with a reasonable and effective product. The current challenges that the world is facing among this pandemic has inspired us to help create solutions that can keep everybody safer during these times.
This device is a simple, cheap, and intuitive invention that will allow people to increase their personal health using very basic concepts. A temperature and humidity sensor on the mask tracks cumulative wear time by analyzing spikes in the mask's humidity. Activity recognition might also be possible with this simple sensor. A small light on the mask indicates when it is time to replace the mask and/or the filter or if air pollution in the area is poor through a color coded system. A companion app was also developed to track these values in real time, and will eventually be used to integrate social distancing and contact tracing alerts.
We used a tiny Arduino and an array of sensors equipped with a small battery that can be easily slipped into any mask with a filter slot / inside pocket. It communicates over Bluetooth to the companion app which gathers the information from the sensors and also uses location data to track air pollution levels.
One of the major challenges we faced was with the hardware; The hackathon was remote so we had to scavenge for whatever hardware we had lying around. Additionally, since none of us had an Android it was difficult to get the Bluetooth communication working. Putting everything together and ensuring the communication preserved the data and an effective sampling rate was key.
We are striving to add contact tracing/social distancing measures to the companion app and shrink down the hardware. We then hope to pitch the idea to hopefully make a difference in the world :)