Wearable Stress Detection
Funded research projectNovel Wearable-based Stress Detection Using Earables and Smartwatches
Research lead
Project core team
Gregory Knowles
Dr Benjamin Metcalfe
Dr Lee Moore
Hub Research theme
Smartphone and wearable technologies
Background
Stress is a global problem that negatively affects mental and physical health. Stress can increase the risk of disease and has been linked with illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and heart disease. The ability to detect and measure stress can lead to better understanding of its effect on mental and physical health.
Intended outcomes
Dr Clarke’s team will explore how ear-based devices can measure how the body changes during stress. Smart earphones can complement or replace smartwatches and can sense a wide variety of bodily changes whilst being less susceptible to movement artefacts which can degrade the quality and validity of the readings.
The team will collect data to train and test a machine learning model that will be able to predict different stress levels. By doing so, it will be possible to detect and measure stress during everyday life, such as when listening to music or at work. This will help to increase understanding of how stress impacts people with, and contributes towards, chronic diseases.
Project blog posts
Behind the research – Wearable Stress Detection
In this instalment of the Behind the Research blog series, we spoke to Dr Christopher Clarke and Greg Knowles both based at the University of Bath. They shared some insights into their project Novel Wearable-based Stress Detection Using Earables and Smartwatches.About...