Suunto Sensum | A sports assistant for the visually impaired
Why and what? | I did a student project with a team of students in Finland for Suunto who were searching for new concepts in the field of wearable electronics. We figured out we can help the visually impaired be more independent by using electronics.
There is 314 million visually impaired people in the world and a lot of them do sports.
Every single sports watch today requires from the user to see. So we created Suunto Sensum, a head worn substitute for smart sports watches.
In collaboration with the Finnish paralympic team we figured out that the device should not take over the sense of hearing so we decided to use bone conduction technology. This enables the user to hear the device as well as what is going on in the environment.
Since sports often take place in noisy environments we had to find a way to keep the communication with the assistant and the device clear. We implemented the throat microphone technology that achieves just that.
The biggest challenge was how to design a good user interface for the visually impaired.
We also took a look at wider possible applications of Sensum and it turns out it can be used in everyday life for controlling home environment and devices, and also for communication with others.
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