Sweat-Powered Sportswear
Have you ever wanted to go out for a morning run and track your progress without the hassle of carrying any type of device? What about running in a bad neighborhood and every time you go out carrying a device increases the risks of being robbed? What if there was a way in which we can address these issues while supporting all the athletes to get the most out of their exercises?
Now imagine a world where you can work out and finish your morning run without worrying about carrying any type of computer with you. The only thing that you will have to do is to wear the brand-new sweat-powered sportswear. While being connected to both your phone and laptop, the sportswear will allow you to keep track of your exercise with precise details. Embedded with motion sensors and a location tracker, the smart sportswear gives back exact details on how many miles a person ran and what areas they passed through. All the information gathered from the sportswear are being sent to the user’s account in a dedicated application for a better interface. The smart sportswear also keeps an eye on your physical health. It can track the user’s heart rate, irregular heartbeats, blood oxygen levels, noise notifications, and of course, pulse rate.
First, let’s talk about the features. Our main goal when designing this device is to allow the user to get a detailed analysis of their exercises. To do so, the device should be water resistant, include an alarm and a stopwatch, have a location tracker, be able to record your movement, keep track of your health, and have a tachymeter (for calculating speed). Since it’s a sweat power device and it’s made for athletes to run in under any weather condition, our main goal is to make it very water resistant and sweat absorbent. The device will also be chargeable. However, to make it as portable as possible, the charged battery will not last very long but will immediately start charging after a person starts sweating. From our studies, after 15 minutes of running/jogging, the person will be able to release enough sweat to recharge the sportswear and continue to benefit from it until the end of the run. In other words, the battery will last 25 minutes after being charged and will start recharging as soon as it absorbs the sweat.
Furthermore, since the device is being worn around the body, calculating the body’s behavior is easier and more accurate than any other sports device on the market. With an accurate heartbeat sensor, we are allowed to do exact measurements of calorie burn and blood flow. The device will also measure blood oxygen levels and will vibrate if the user’s breathing is not efficient. Blood oxygen levels are a very important aspect of a runner’s health, and a decrease in oxygen can lead to fatigue and lightheadedness. The device will also track for any unusual movements that could be a symptom of a potential heart attack or even a deep vein thrombosis.
We talked about the features of this device and explained what it can do to support the runner’s exercise but in order to make it make sense we need a way to reading all that recorded information. Since it’s just clothing with technology in it, there is no way that allows the user to read and input anything from and to the system, right? That’s true, but only when we neglect the existence of the Voice user interface (VUI). The device will take audio as input and gives back audio and vibrations as output. It will have a headphone jack and a Bluetooth Transmitter. To allow easier navigation, the device will have a smart assistant to put everything together in an easy-to-use VUI. This will allow the user to do multiple things without the need of stopping or even slowing down. The user can play music, set an alarm, ask for progress, and more. One of the main features of such an interface is a navigation system. If the user provides an internet SIM to the sportswear, they will be able to access the navigation system which will guide them to any place in the city. It can help you explore new areas without the fear of getting lost. The system will also notify you if you reach a milestone, remind you to take breaks, tells you the time, and even read the news for you.
Finally, and to tie everything together, the device will connect to your mobile phone and computers. Creating a network that connects the sportswear with your other devices is one of the most important features we seek in this device. The sportswear has a personal storage drive that will record the user’s movement and sends it to the other devices when connected to the internet. Since some of the information the device records are better to be shown visually, a touch user interface like your phone’s will be very useful for visualizing the data. For example, a map is shown with a line tracking the user’s movements and even allowing them to know exactly when they slowed down or started running faster. With such a network, the person can store a great amount of data in the cloud which will help out with tracking personal progress.
A sweat-powered sportswear is a project that has health benefits and the potential for a more seamless running experience. By not carrying a mobile phone or a watch a runner can focus on doing the exercise without any distractions. With accurate measurements, the user will be able to track and improve their running habits while staying safe at all times. Sweat-powered sportswear has the potential to be the future of our everyday runs.
