WaistonBelt X: A Belt-Type Wearable Device with Sensing and Intervention Toward Health Behavior Change

• Main Authors: Yugo Nakamura, Yuki Matsuda, Yutaka Arakawa, Keiichi Yasumoto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: wearable computing; mobile sensing; activity recognition; health behavior change; intervention; health care support system
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/20/4600

Changing behavior related to improper lifestyle habits has attracted attention as a solution to prevent lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and stroke. To drive health behavior changes, wearable devices are needed, and they must not only provide accurate sensing and visualization functions but also effective intervention functions. In this paper, we propose a health support system, WaistonBelt X, that consists of a belt-type wearable device with sensing and intervention functions and a smartphone application. WaistonBelt X can automatically measure a waistline with a magnetometer that detects the movements of a blade installed in the buckle, and monitor the basic activities of daily living with inertial sensors. Furthermore, WaistonBelt X intervenes with the user to correct lifestyle habits by using a built-in vibrator. Through evaluation experiments, we confirmed that our proposed device achieves measurement of the circumference on the belt position (mean absolute error of 0.93 cm) and basic activity recognition (F1 score of 0.95) with high accuracy. In addition, we confirmed that the intervention via belt vibration effectively improves the sitting posture of the user.