Wearable Devices for Environmental Monitoring in the Built Environment: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The so-called Internet of Things (IoT), which is rapidly increasing the number of network-connected and interconnected objects, could have a far-reaching impact in identifying the link between human health, well-being, and environmental concerns. In line with the IoT concept, many commercial wearables have been introduced in recent years, which differ from the usual devices in that they use the term "smart" alongside the terms "watches", "glasses", and "jewellery". Commercially available wearables aim to enhance smartphone functionality by enabling payment for commercial items or monitoring physical activity. However, what is the trend of scientific production about the concept of wearables regarding environmental monitoring issues? What are the main areas of interest covered by scientific production? What are the main findings and limitations of the developed solution in this field? The methodology used to answer the above questions is based on a systematic review. The data were acquired following a reproducible methodology. The main result is that, among the thermal, visual, acoustic, and air quality environmental factors, the last one is the most considered when using wearables even though in combination with some others. Another relevant finding is that of the acquired studies; in only one, the authors shared their wearables as an open-source device, and it will probably be necessary to encourage researchers to consider open-source as a means to promote scalability and proliferation of new wearables customized to cover different domains.

Keywords: acoustic environmental factor; air quality environmental factor; environmental monitoring; systematic review; thermal environmental factor; visual environmental factor; wearable devices; wearables.

Figure 1

The global trend over the last 10 years of the keyword “wearable”—Google, 2020.

Figure 2

Query structure consisting of eight main sections.

Figure 3

PRISMA flow diagrams: (a) Visual EF; (b) Acoustic EF; (c) Thermal EF; (d) Air Quality EF. The number of sections refers to query structure (Figure 2).

Figure 4

Exploratory Analysis with the word cloud of the most used terms in the title and abstract of the selected papers: (a) Visual EF; (b) Acoustic EF; (c) Thermal EF; (d) Air Quality EF.

Figure 5

Annual Scientific production—Scopus, 2021.