2021 / PRODUCT INNOVATION
Product designed to fight Covid-19
Covid has thrown us into a new life. A reality that we had never expected. While some nations have already sustained, the rest are still coping with new variants and subsequent waves. Be it any situation, one thing is clear the facemask, and social distancing is the new normal way of living and will continue for at least the next few years.
And thus, preventive measures to follow social distancing and tracking safe entries to detect clusters will remain one of the priority initiatives for the government and businesses to resume all activities safely.
Ministry of Health Singapore(MOH) was facing a major challenge in tracking safe entries and monitoring social distancing.
There were common measures rolled out by MOH, such as using QR scanning apps and tokens to track entries in the malls and shops. There were decals and markers pasted everywhere to assist people in maintaining a safe distance in public places.
The safe entry apps and tokens required scanning and tapping on arrival and exit. But most people used to forget to scan on their way out, which created inaccuracy in detecting COVID clusters.
We created a unique product from scratch called "Covarmour." A low BLE device that fits on any facemask and tracks user entries hassle-free. People were required to connect this device only once with their trace-together app. When the device was in the proximity of any safe entry scanner, the entry-in was auto-detected by the BLE chip. And similarly, on the way out, it used to track entry out.
Covarmour was a one-stop solution for a problem. We also added a small IR sensor. By chance, if anyone gets closer within a 1-meter range, the LED strip on the armour turns on. This was an easy alert signal for a wearer, as well as others around, to move away and maintain a good distance.
MOH freely distributed Covarmour as a preventive Covid measure during the last phase of the pandemic, and it escalated the cluster detection accuracy to up to 90%. Our agency received significant recognition from the MOH and was in the top headlines for a week.