Face Guardian

Face touching is one of the primary ways people contract viruses. People on average touch their faces 23 times an hour. Obviously we should stop touching our faces. Thing is, we can't. Face touching is a deeply ingrained unconscious behavior. How can we stop touching our faces if we don't even know we're doing it? Things like washing hands, social distancing and mask-wearing are easy: you just do them. But how do we not do face touching? Face Guardian is an attempt to solve this problem in a highly scalable fashion. All it requires is a smartphone and a magnet. You put the magnet on your wrist and your phone around your neck. Your phone's compass (magnetometer) detects when the wrist magnet approaches your face. The app records every time you touch your face, and it also provides vibration and audio alerts. Face Guardian's target demographic is parents and children stuck at home. If you have children, you can setup up everyone in your family with Face Guardian (phone on neck and magnet on the wrist) and then play a board game or watch a movie. Who will be the first person to inadvertently touch their face? Maybe the person who touches their face the least can get a prize. Although this is meant to be a fun educational activity for parents and children, anyone can benefit from it. Setup Face Guardian before you read a news article, write some code or procrastinate on the internet. Even with the admittedly obtrusive experience of wearing your phone around your neck, you might be surprised at how quickly you inadvertently touch your face.