Exercising outdoors is great for our general health and mental wellbeing, but it also carries some risks that are not always apparent, such as bad air quality, incoming storms, or simply falling down. To assist in tracking these environmental parameters and overall physical activity, Christopher Mendez Martinez created a small wearable device he calls “the Protector.”

Built using the Arduino Nicla Sense ME, the Protector integrates into a pendant hanging off a K-Way jacket’s zipper that can use its onboard sensor suite to read data such as temperature, humidity, pressure, CO2, and air quality. Christopher was able to add activity detection by gathering accelerometer data of falling, standing still, and walking before importing the labeled samples into the Edge Impulse Studio. From here, he trained a motion recognition model and deployed it back to the Nicla Sense ME as an Arduino library.

Beyond just the hardware, Martinez also developed his own accompanying mobile app which connects wirelessly to the Nicla Sense ME over Bluetooth®. The app constantly receives new data from the board, including the current activity, pressure, and air quality readings. It then displays all of these values in a convenient dashboard along with a map that plots where data has been recorded on a map.

For more information on the project, you can read Martinez’s write-up here and check out his demo below.