Smartwatches That Measure Skin Conductance Could Help Monitor, Manage Your Stress Levels
Designed as a closed-loop feedback system, this proposed smartwatch upgrade will let you know when you need to take a break.
Researchers at the Universities of Houston and Miami have published a paper detailing how smartwatches equipped with low-cost electrodes can help monitor and even manage the wearers' stress levels.
“This study is one of the very first steps toward the ultimate goal of monitoring brain responses using wearable devices," claims Rose Faghih, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, of her team's work, "and closing the loop to keep a person's stress state within a pleasant range."
The method chosen for detecting stress is simple enough: A pair of electrodes, added to a smartwatch-style wearable, which measure skin conductance response. Using data collected from users in a variety of stressful and relaxing situations, Faghih and colleagues developed a system for tying skin conductance response to stress levels — and then a closed-loop system for feeding the result back to the user in the form of reminders to take a break, listen to relaxing music, or ameliorate the stress in some other way.
"To the best of our knowledge, this research is one of the very first to relate the cognitive stress state to the changes in SCR events," lead author Hamid Fekri Azgomi claims, "and design the control mechanism to close the loop in a real-time simulation system."
"The final results verify that the proposed architecture has great potential to be implemented in a wrist-worn wearable device," Faghih concludes, "and used in daily life."
It's not just Faghih's team turning to sweat to monitor stress: Last year Caltech researchers developed a sweat sensor which measured cortisol levels as a means of tracking the subjects' stress, and just like the smartwatch version it could be implemented in a wearable — though Faghih's design is simpler and could be used for long-term monitoring without the need to refresh the sensor materials.
The team's work, which has been proven in simulation only, has been published in the journal IEEE Access under open-access terms.