Experimental smart necklace could help quit smoking

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. Cigarette smoke contains thousands of harmful and disease-causing chemicals related to tobacco. Quitting smoking is not an easy task, but a smart necklace-like device is being developed that promises to help users quit.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), smoking-related diseases kill more than five million people worldwide. It is responsible for about 200,000 deaths per year in Brazil.

Necklace to help you quit smoking

The SmokeMon is a necklace-like device under development at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the United States.

According to the description of the product under development, it can “capture all-day spatial, temporal and thermal information around the user and the cigarette to discreetly and passively detect smoking events”.

SmokeMon detects smoke events by taking heat signatures from thermal sensors with its algorithm. It detects breaths using a single high-information sensing mode that is comfortable to use and low in power consumption.

It is very easy to use thanks to its 500 mAh battery that lasts for about 19 hours on a single charge.

The device measures smoking in much more detail, going beyond just the amount of packs or daily cigarettes per year.

Senior researcher Nabil Alshurafa, associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University, said in a press release about the device, “For many people trying to quit smoking, a slip is a cigarette or two, or even a single puff. A person can learn from mistakes, realize they haven’t failed, only have had a temporary setback. To avoid a relapse, we can begin to shift our focus to how we deal with your triggers and cravings.

The research has been published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies, and the open source data behind the device’s algorithms is available on GitHub.