We have designed and built a simple app called Face Defender, which we hope will provide some self-help to aid you in managing your own sub-conscious behaviour.
FaceDefender is a self-help app which is designed to make your smart watch trigger an audible and vibrating alarm, on the smartphone* and watch, whenever you move your hand close to your face or mouth. This is a useful consciousness to learn as most people tend to
touch their face sub-consciously many times a day. Using the app, the alerts may help in ameliorating this behaviour.
* Note: The audible alert on smartphone is only available with the WearOS version and with Android phones.
The app is a simple toggle on/off switch on the watch (and smartphone for compatible products):
FaceDefender is available for Android Wear with Android phones
For more details see the instructions for FaceDefender on Andoid Wear
FaceDefender is also available for compatible Fitbit watches:
(Ionic, Versa, Versa2, and Versa Lite).
For more details see the instructions for FaceDefender on Fitbit
If the wearer moves their hand towards their face the watch itself will provide a haptic (vibration) alert.
While in use it is recommended that the user wears the watch on the dominant hand and that the watch settings are set up accordingly.
For Fitbit the settings include selection of the hand you wear the watch on. This can be set and changed at any time using the Fitbit companion app on your smartphone.
FaceDefender uses these settings to determine which hand you are wearing your watch on. Make sure that this is correctly selected or the alert will sound in the wrong position or not at all.
It does not matter if you wear your watch on the inside or outside of your wrist.
Other Notes
If you have switched on the watch alarm but do not move your hand for 30 minutes the switch will automatically go to the off position. This is in order to save battery life. You may switch it back on if this happens.
FaceDefender detects likely proximity to your face by monitoring the watch accelerometer sensor. This can sometimes lead to false positives or failure to detect with very unusual wrist angles or non-upright posture. It is meant to provide an indication only.
You should switch off FaceDefender while driving or operating machinary in order to avoid unnecessary distraction. It is not designed for continuous use and you should only use it during suitable activities.
While FaceDefender is running and the alarm is enabled it will use additional battery power and this will be increased if the alert is triggered repeatedly. You should avoid doing this excessively and switch it off for activities that lead to repeated triggering of the alarm.
