Technical Perspectives of Contact-Tracing Applications on Wearables for COVID-19 Control

Abstract

The wearables' market is rapidly evolving, with applications ranging from healthcare and activity monitoring to emerging domains such as drones and haptic helmets. Wearablebased contact tracing is gaining increased attention in the COVID-19 era for more efficient disease prevention. Therefore, it is of timely relevance to identify the leading existing wireless contact-tracing solutions and their suitability for wearables. Existing trade-offs of contact-tracing applications require a thorough analysis of technical capabilities, such as accuracy, energy consumption, availability, sources of errors when dealing with wireless channels, privacy challenges, and deterrents towards a large-scale adoption on the wearables market. Based on extensive literature research, we conclude that decentralized architectures generally offer a better place in a trade-off in terms of accuracy and user eagerness to adopt them, taking into account privacy considerations, compared to centralized approaches. Our paper provides a brief technical overview of the existing solutions deployed for contact tracing, defines main principles that affect the overall efficacy of digital contact tracing, and presents a discussion on the potential effect of wearables in tackling the spread of a highly contagious virus.

What Went Wrong? Predictors of Contact Tracing Adoption in Italy during COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In general, many things appeared to contribute to making things go wrong with CT functioning and adoption around the world: (a) many individuals do not have smartphones, especially in poor and disadvantaged countries [62,63]; (b) BLE technology was not originally designed to accurately estimate the distance between smartphones and thus is prone to errors [64]; (c) the efficacy of CT apps depend on user honesty (which is not always granted) and in the ease in reporting themselves as positive; (d) privacy and data security concerns [65][66][67][68]. In our specific case of Italian people who, despite having skills and opportunities to use CTs (i.e., no difficulties or barriers in using or accessing a smartphone), did not adopt it, we concluded that low levels of perceived efficacy of Immuni as a solution to deal with the pandemic, low-risk perception, trust in government and its action against COVID-19, together with a negative attitude towards CTs and not knowing others (i.e., family members, friends, and acquaintances) that already used the Immuni app may have contributed to an unsatisfying adoption of the system.…”

Data Gathering Techniques in WSN: A Cross-Layer View

“…In particular, the authors design compact potentially wearable oscillating-magnetic-field-based proximity-sensing prototype systems suitable for the relevant safety distance and able to track social distancing much more reliably than the current Bluetooth-based smartphone technology. Shubina et al [ 227 ] provide a brief technical overview of the main contact-tracing approaches and the challenges they impose on wearable technology. The paper also provides a short overview of the existing solutions deployed for contact tracing and a discussion on the potential effect of wearables in tackling the spread of a highly contagious virus.…”

An Enhanced IoT Based Tracing and Tracking Model for COVID -19 Cases

“…The application's attributes and user's concerns regarding security and privacy are briefed [16]. Usage of Wearables in contact tracing and an overview of the existing solutions are discussed [17]. Performance evaluation of various techniques like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS in contact tracing is discussed.…”