Australian workers are testing out a new kind of wearable tech: baseball caps that measure brain activity.
Australian workers are having their brains monitored in a growing number of workplaces to reduce fatigue-related incidents, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The technology, dubbed the SmartCap, looks like a baseball cap but uses electroencephalogram (EEG) technology, which records brain activity.
The SmartCap is being primarily used at mining companies. Mining is the fourth-most fatal job in Australia — a total of 12 people died last year on the job, and 13 have died this year through December 1.
But the device is also being used in other industries, such as aviation and oil. People who work with vehicle or truck equipment have used the technology as well.
The SmartCap works in conjunction with a processor, which is the size of a matchbox.
The SmartCap analyzes brain activity in real-time and, when it detects fatigue risk, will alert the wearer via the processor, which will display a visual message and set off an audible alarm. Risk is measured on a scale of one through four and is determined based on how able you are to resist sleep.
The SmartCap can take advantage of 3G/4G or Wi-Fi to relay the risk score to the processor, but if the wearer is out of range, that information will be stored until a connection is found again.
The brainwave information is not stored — it's only use to determine a risk level and is thrown away once it has done so.
"The idea of monitoring fatigue for people in the workplace can be a confronting notion at times and I think the comfort that our users feel is that it's an initiative from their workplace to help them get through the day and get home safe each day. It's all about safety," Dan Bongers, one of the creators of SmartCap, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
