Making Wearable Sensing Less Obtrusive

Abstract

Sensing is a crucial part of any cyber-physical system. Wearable device has its huge potential for sensing applications because it is worn on the user body. However, wearable sensing can cause obtrusiveness to the user. Obtrusiveness can be seen as a perception of a lack of usefulness [1] such as a lag in user interaction channel. In addition, being worn by a user, it is not connected to a power supply, and thus needs to be removed to be charged regularly. This can cause a nuisance to elderly or disabled people. However, there are also opportunities for wearable devices to be used to assist users in daily life activities. In my proposal, I propose three directions to make wearable sensing less obtrusive: (1) Reduce obtrusiveness in user interaction with the device, (2) reduce the obtrusiveness in powering the device, and (3) using wearable to reduce obtrusiveness in user interaction with the surrounding environment.