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Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

github.com

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Re: Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

#22

Post by esquire_900 »

Very interesting idea, I hope you can progress this into a well working, proven application.

I tried to do something very similar a year or 2 ago, more directed towards meditation. (Ie as a helper that uses breath to detect a wandering mind). A microphone in itself wasn't sufficient in my case, and detection was quite hard. I ended up using wired earbuds with microphones.

Nice focus as well, less scoring and more signal. All the best in your project!

Re: Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

#23

Post by felixzeller »

esquire_900 wrote: post #22

Very interesting idea, I hope you can progress this into a well working, proven application. I tried to do something very similar a year or 2 ago, more directed towards meditation. (Ie as a helper that uses breath to detect a wandering mind). A microphone in itself wasn't sufficient in my case, and detection was quite hard. I ended up using wired earbuds with microphones. Nice focus as well, less scoring and more sig…

Thank you so much for your kind words. The microphone is the hard part, so I am trying to learn where the limits are instead of just pretending they do not exist... What happened to your project?

Re: Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

#25

Post by frnz »

Audio normalizing seems to be quite hard for this kind of use. I tried this 20 yrs ago with parts of a (mouse-)pointer device, a rigid nylon strap around the chest and 8 cm of flexible length in between. Mouse pointer wheel (one dimension only) was driven by change of length. For some hours of fiddling it was quite reliable.

Re: Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

#28

Post by felixzeller »

xattt wrote: post #27

What about in call centre situations to monitor employees or customers’ emotional states, or fingerprinting customers?

Exactly the kind of use I don`t want to support. I do not upload raw audio or speech and I don`t try to identify individuals from the signal. The app was built for voluntary feedback on mood and rhythm.

Re: Show HN: Live breath detection and biofeedback from a phone microphone

#29

Post by felixzeller »

frnz wrote: post #25

Audio normalizing seems to be quite hard for this kind of use. I tried this 20 yrs ago with parts of a (mouse-)pointer device, a rigid nylon strap around the chest and 8 cm of flexible length in between. Mouse pointer wheel (one dimension only) was driven by change of length. For some hours of fiddling it was quite reliable.

That`s very cool. I chose the phone mic, because everybody already has one, no extra device needed. The downside is normalization: from room noise to breathing style. I do use an ML layer to deal with some of these variations but only after basic signal checks. The hard part is to decide when the microphone signal is too ambiguous to use at all...
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