Ubi-Asthma: Toward Ubiquitous Asthma Detection Using the Smartwatch

Asthma is a common respiratory disease in modern society. However, people are rarely aware of the symptoms of asthma because the early stage of asthma is similar to that of the common cold (e.g., wheeze, cough, and shortness of breath). To tackle this challenge, we propose an asthma detection system, Ubi-Asthma, based on the smartwatch. Ubi-Asthma combines breathing signals and guttural sound (e.g., cough sound and throat-clearing sound) signals to realize passive and accurate asthma detection without interrupting the user. Not only can Ubi-Asthma extract breathing signals from the user even if the user is walking but also recognize guttural sound signals when the user is engaged in voice communication without being disturbed by noise. The features of breathing and guttural sound are combined to improve the accuracy of asthma detection. We have implemented a fully functional prototype using an off-the-shelf smartwatch. Fifty volunteers participate in an extensive experiment of up to 150 h to train Ubi-Asthma. As a result, Ubi-Asthma can reach a detection accuracy of 98.4%, which is higher than breath- or guttural-based asthma detection systems. Ubi-Asthma is expected to provide a potential solution for smart-home applications in the future.