This earbud will warn you if you suddenly fall asleep
September 28, 20243 Mins Read
Recently, scientists have claimed to create such an earbud, which will tell when the user is about to fall asleep.

Earbuds

It is hard to find people who have never fallen asleep on the job. For most people, this simply indicates their need for rest. However, falling asleep suddenly can be dangerous, even fatal, for people who drive or operate vehicles and heavy machinery.

Drowsy driving alone causes numerous car accidents every year in the United States and around the world. In addition, the country's National Safety Council has warned that fatigue is a major risk in industries such as construction and mining.

To prevent such accidents, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a new type of earbud that will detect when users are falling asleep.

These special types of earbuds make decisions by monitoring brain activity, just like an electroencephalogram (EEG) works. EEG is a method by which doctors measure electrical signals in the brain.

Conventionally an EEG involves placing several electrodes on the scalp. However, these newer types of earbuds work with 'built-in' electrodes that connect to the ear canal.

In addition, the signals these earbuds pick up are much weaker than a standard EEG. The researchers found that the new device, called an 'ear EEG', was still not good enough to detect 'alpha waves', a medium-frequency pattern of brain activity.

These brain waves are typically seen when people close their eyes or begin to fall asleep, Norridge wrote in the report.

The idea for the new earbuds first came to Ricky Mueller, the study's senior author and associate professor at UC Berkeley, after buying Apple AirPods for himself in 2017. From then on he decided to create a great platform to record brain activity.

“We think this technology has a lot of potential. Identifying sleep is just one example of this. Because, it can also help in sleep monitoring or diagnosis of sleep disorders.”

But designing these earbuds was not easy. Because these electrodes need to touch the skin of the ear well for proper understanding (reading). Conventional EEGs are usually performed with thin metal electrodes stuck to the scalp.

It's very difficult to make earbuds that fit comfortably in different ear sizes and still perform well.

Previous designs by other research groups have used gel to improve the fit of the earbuds or custom earpieces for each individual. But Muller's research team wanted to create something that anyone could use without any special preparation.

That's why the researchers worked with other researchers at UC Berkeley to design a dry and reusable earbud in three sizes: small, medium and large. The latter device incorporates multiple electrodes, which gently impact the ear canal and fit comfortably in the ear. For this reason researchers have used flexible material in it.

At the end of the study, the researchers improved the design of the EarPods and added machine learning technology to analyze the data.

Researchers tested these earbuds on nine volunteers. Volunteers wear these earbuds while doing monotonous work in a dark room. As a result, the earbuds could accurately detect the volunteers falling asleep, even when the signal quality of these earbuds was not very perfect.

Muller and his research team are currently exploring other alternative uses for ear EEGs, which can also pick up signals such as the body's heart rate, eye movements and jaw clenching.

“We can easily wear these wireless earbuds all the time. And that's why this technology is so promising. Because it doesn't require anything extra,” says Muller.

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This research has been published in the scientific journal 'Nature Communications'.