Lingerie will soon be joining smartphones, smartwatches and smart cars in the ranks of devices with artificial intelligence with the creation of the "smart" bra, CNN reported.
Researchers at Microsoft are developing a technologically-advanced undergarment embedded with physiological sensors that seek to monitor a woman's heart activity to detect her emotions and combat overeating.
They explored emotional eating patterns and investigated the feasibility and benefits of developing an elaborate, integrated system, to curb bad eating habits.
"This study was focused on investigating the feasibility of using physiological sensors to implicitly detect emotions," scientists said in their research paper published online. "While implicit emotion detection has been done in the past, this is the first study, that we are aware of, that makes use of wearable, mobile sensors for detecting emotions."
The sensors in the smart bra prototype can signal the wearers smartphone via an app, which then flash a warning message to help the user avoid making bad eating decisions - something that commonly occurs when someone is stressed or in a bad mood.
According to CNN, the tech company has no plans to make the bra into a commercial product.
"The bra sensing system is just one instance of a class of work from a group of Microsoft researchers that is focused on the broader topic of affective computing, or designing devices and services that are sensitive to people's moods and react accordingly," a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN. "While we will continue our research in affective computing, Microsoft has no plans to develop a bra with sensors."
Researchers developed a smart bra because they felt it would make use of the wearable, mobile sensors.
"First, we needed a form factor that would be comfortable when worn for long durations," researchers said. "The bra form factor was ideal because it allowed us to collect (electrocardiogram data) near the heart."
Microsoft worked collaborated with the University of Rochester and the University Southampton in the UK.
The majority of the women interviewed said that personalized interventions - being alerted to their emotional states - helped them identify triggers for binge eating.
After developing the bra, researchers then conducted a study in which four women wore the sensors in their bras for four days to monitor their vital signs. An electrocardiogram (EKG) sensor under the arm measured their heart rate, while an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor tracked their perspiration.
They concluded that the bra was mostly effective in detecting its wearer's emotional changes. They also discovered that the sensors need to be recharged every three to four hours, which limits how long the bra could be worn.
