Skip to main content

A new bracelet can detect if you’re being attacked, automatically call help

Automating personal safety with wearable smart jewelry

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have developed a smart wearable they hope could be used to keep people safe in the face of possible physical or sexual assault, or elderly people experiencing a fall. The Smart Jewelry Bracelet uses a combination of machine learning technology and smart sensors to automatically detect when an assault or fall takes place.

The bracelet can then alert passersby with a loud beeping sound and a red strobe light. It also connects, via Bluetooth, to the wearer’s smartphone and sends their location and an emergency message to a predetermined contact list. Unlike dialing 911 or using an emergency app, the device works autonomously — meaning that the user is not required to trigger it.

“The difference with existing panic button type devices is that we use multi-modal sensing and machine learning to automatically detect the assault or the fall,” Ragib Hasan, associate professor of computer science in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences, told Digital Trends. “This is a significant improvement as the assault or the fall can leave the user unconscious or otherwise unable to call for help.”

The multi-modal sensing Hasan refers to includes accelerometers able to detect unusual movements, as well as blood pressure and temperature sensors to sense elevated blood pressure on the part of the wearer. The bracelet’s learning component allows it to learn to distinguish between the user’s regular movements and an unusual incident. It can function for more than 12 hours on a single charge.

“Our goal is to make an inconspicuous wearable bracelet, which for all purposes looks and feels like a regular jewelry item, but which can essentially act as a guardian angel to watch over the user,” Hasan said.

He noted that the current Smart Jewelry Bracelet is only a prototype, and not yet ready to bring to market. The team working on it is continuously improving the prototype by adding additional sensors to collect more data. They are also working to incorporate similar sensing technology into other objects like shoes and earrings which can be worn by the user.

“We envision a future where our everyday objects will be smart without looking like nerdy gadgets,” Hasan continued. “We are essentially working on making the computer invisible, yet an essential component of our everyday clothing, jewelry, and other objects.”

Editors' Recommendations

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
A learning bias found in kids could help make A.I. technology better
How to take kids photos

The theory behind machine learning tools that are like neural networks is that they function and, more specifically, learn in a similar way to the human brain. Just as we discover the world through trial and error, so too does modern artificial intelligence. In practice, however, things are a bit different. There are aspects of childhood learning that machines can’t replicate -- and they’re one of the things which, in many domains, make humans superior learners.

Researchers at New York University are working to change that. Researchers Kanishk Gandhi and Brenden Lake have explored how something called “mutual exclusivity bias,” which is present in kids, could help make A.I. better when it comes to learning tasks like understanding language.

Read more
Groundbreaking A.I. can synthesize speech based on a person’s brain activity
Everything you need to know about Neuralink

Speech synthesis from neural decoding of spoken sentences

Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco have demonstrated a way to use artificial intelligence to turn brain signals into spoken words. It could one day pave the way for people who cannot speak or otherwise communicate to be able to talk with those around them.

Read more
This AI cloned my voice using just three minutes of audio
acapela group voice cloning ad

There's a scene in Mission Impossible 3 that you might recall. In it, our hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) tackles the movie's villain, holds him at gunpoint, and forces him to read a bizarre series of sentences aloud.

"The pleasure of Busby's company is what I most enjoy," he reluctantly reads. "He put a tack on Miss Yancy's chair, and she called him a horrible boy. At the end of the month, he was flinging two kittens across the width of the room ..."

Read more