An Everyday Hat for Detection of Eye Blinks and Forehead Clenching

This paper presents an early prototype of an everyday hat capable of detecting eye blinks and forehead clenching and turning them into inputs for digital actions. In fabrication, commercially available standard dry and semi-dry Ag/AgCl electrodes are compared to dry and semi-dry electrodes fabricated from copper and silver-based textiles and silver-based thread. According to measurements from six participants, the created hat prototype with integrated electrodes is fully comparable to a commercially available electrode holder band, while the copper-based textile electrodes have detection accuracy for eye blinking and forehead clenching comparable to the standard Ag/AgCl electrodes. Among all materials, the semi-dry electrodes have better detection accuracy than the dry electrodes. Finally, a proof-of-concept application of the hat, turning light on/off by eye blinks and forehead clenching, reveals more than 80% success rate, when tested by four participants.