Immutouch is ideal in this period of coronavirus. A time when we all have to resist the urge to touch our face. This is how the virus can pass from doorknobs or other objects to your mucous membranes and make you sick.
The start-up Slightly Robot has reworked Immutouch. Basically, it's a bracelet to prevent trichotillomania, a disorder that forces people to pull their hair out.
Immutouch vibrates to warn you
Slightly Robot has therefore redesigned its bracelet to transform it into Immutouch, a bracelet that vibrates if you touch your face. Its accelerometer detects the movement of your hand 10 times per second. Depending on the calibrations that the Immutouch takes when you put it in place, it then vibrates when you touch or approach your eyes, nose or mouth. A support app helps you track your progress.
The goal is to develop a Pavlovian response whereby when you feel like touching your face, you don't do it to avoid the buzzing feeling. Your brain internalizes the negative feedback from the vibration, causing you with aversive conditioning to ignore the desire to scratch yourself.
"A problem the size of COVID-19 requires everyone to do their part, big or small," said Matthew Toles, co-founder of Slightly Robot. "It turns out that the three of us were particularly well equipped to tackle this task and we felt it was our duty to try."
An approach to welcome
Immutouch werables are on sale today for $ 50 each and are ready to ship immediately. You can wear it on the dominant hand with which you are most likely to touch your face. Or wear one for each arm to maximize deterrence.
"We are not looking to make money with this. We sell each unit at almost cost, taking into account the cost of materials, manufacturing, assembly and handling, "said co-founder Justin Ith. Unlike a venture capital-funded startup required to generate returns for investors, Slightly Robot was funded by a small grant from the University of Washington in 2016 and has started since.
"We built Immutouch because we knew we could do it quickly, so we had to. We all live in Seattle and we see our communities reacting to this epidemic with deep concern and fear. "
"My father has an autoimmune disease that forces him to take immunosuppressive drugs. As he is sixty years old and his immune system is weakened, I do my best to keep the communities around him and my family clean and safe. "
Immutouch could be really effective
Immutouch could be effective, according to a study using portable warning devices to deter people with trichotillomania from pulling their hair out. Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that vibrations reduce hair pulling in the short and long term.
Justin Ith agrees that warnings, not itching, must be taken into account to instill the good habit. So it doesn't work when you are in bed. The Immutouch doesn't shock you electrically like the old gadget called Pavlok; designed to help people quit smoking.
Maybe smart health watch manufacturers like Apple could develop free or cheap apps to allow users to train using the hardware they already own.
But by then, Justin Ith hopes that Immutouch can have some success. He hopes "to be able to order larger quantities, reduce the price and make everything more accessible".
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