While the x-OSC board and wind detector (thermistor) worked we did experience some problems. The core technology and principals (i.e. thermistor coupled with IoT board using OSC protocol) are sound but several upgrades could be made in the next revision.
Adding more rigidity to the physical connection between the detector and VR headset would be a definite plus. Since breath is narrow and fades quickly just moving slightly from center and the detector will record a much different velocity even though the subject could be using the same breath intensity. In the current setup it is hard to get it positioned well - admittedly though our group was scared to do too much lest we permanently damage either the headset or breath device. In any event adding a good rigid connection structure would aid in keeping the thermistor centered in the right location. Another possible upgrade could be to have multiple thermistors positioned in a grid pattern (i.e. 3x3 grid giving 9 readings). While the OSC board is several hundred dollars the thermistors themselves are only twenty-five or so dollars, but there is a limit to how many connections the board can handle. Additionally, a new revision is available from moderndevices.com (thermistor manufacturer) that promises better performance than the current revision.
Persistent problems with network connections also plagued our group. Moving to new computers always necessitated resetting hardware and software, and in some cases certain firewalls, network cards and WiFi adapters didn’t work. A potential fix to this might be to have the OSC device broadcast its signal and have it get picked up by another device (e.g. WiFi connected Arduino) that transmits the data to the computer via a wired connection (e.g. USB).
Breath as a haptic device is developing technology and it has been a pleasure for our group to work with the breath detector. Hopefully our experience with both the hardware and software aspects of VR breath will help others looking to integrate breathing into computing applications for research, commercial or consumer applications.
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