My brother is the director of Alaska VA and asked for help for this app

There is a group inside the VA that might be able to help with it.

https://connectedcare.va.gov/

They have teams that are working on mobile app's and they may be open to quickly putting together something to try out. They have done similar things in the past.

Also you can check out the VA developer portal. They right now are now focused on stand alone app's, but they have a community they may be able to reach out to

https://developer.va.gov/

Hi,

I'm an engineer with VA as a part of USDS [https://usds.gov]. As dkhenry stated in the comments, I sent a couple messages to the VA Lighthouse team along with the VA Office of Connected Care team to see they can help support this effort.

As someone who often gets asked by government officials on what can be done to improve the lives of X, Y, or Z and what applications can be built and how can we use artificial intelligence in a sector, my first answer is to get X, Y, and Z to the table and in the room then we'll talk.

Alost anything other than that is a hammer looking for a nail, or an app looking for no user.

The same used to happen to us building custom software for enterprise, where an executive starts telling us features to build for analysts/salespeople/marketing/engineering, and what the product should do. We asked access to users and were denied, and got paid for software nobody uses which is demoralizing.

Our position now is: get the analysts/salespeople/marketing/engineering in the room and we'll build a product that drives value just fine.

A lot of problems exist not for lack of a mobile app, and people either fail to see the problems in terms of systems, incentives, friction, trust, etc or there's pressure to show something is being done and an app is a good way to do just that. Activity over output.

My opinion is: although the pressure may be strong on your brother to show something is being done, a good way to actually get things done is to meet the people your brother is trying to serve, and then serve them. Doing that may expose that many of them may have trouble actually acquiring soap, or are disabled and need someone to help them through this, or just need food and shelter.

A job of mine involved building prototypes for Wear OS. Based on that I'd guess that the idea is at least explorable.

Smartwatches do have the needed sensors, I think. The watch is in a specific position when you touch your face. That should be detectable.

There is an API to read them, https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/sensors/sensors_m.... You can run apps in the foreground basically infinitely, as long as the Android was not hacked to death by the vendor (and every new Android update might end that in the name of battery efficiency).

One thing to keep in mind is that not every watch has every sensor. Not sure which ones you would need here, but gyroscope and distance should be needed. https://www.mobvoi.com/ge/pages/ticwatchse has both and would be a cheap starting point.

Then this is "just" about creating a model that detects when the watch is in the target position. That might be impossible if I'm wrong about what the sensors return, or complicated if you need to create a complex model where in space the watch is at all time, or it might be rather easy - fully depends on what the sensor data give you and how far Android already interprets them.

I think you should send this as feedback to Apple, specifically the Apple Watch team. Sometimes even emailing the top people at Apple might be able to help.

You can also post this in the iOSprogramming subreddit.

I think this should be possible using the sensors on the watch similar to how watches have the auto screen on when hand is raised.

I know BJ Fogg, Stanford behavior scientist, and creator of the Tiny Habits program is doing research into habits and COVID-19. Your brother could reach out to him about this.

https://www.tinyhabits.com/handwashing https://www.tinyhabits.com/stop-touching-your-face https://www.tinyhabits.com/expert-help

I’m curious how many vets in AK wear an Apple Watch.

Though I get it that your brother wants to do something.

My team and I built this. We tried to make it work on smartwatches, but necessary Hz, battery life, and UX limitations (ie: being in a "fitness session" to access necessary sensors) all proved to be an inadequate user experience. So we just created dedicated hardware and firmware.

Check us out here: https://immutouch.com/

Here's TechCrunch's write up on us: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/dont-immutouch/

As a veteran myself, I’d much rather any sort of money went into something that isn’t the disease of the day.

Kind of find it hard to believe out of all the things one could do to help veterans in Alaska, this is the one thing he wants to do.

Neat idea and not a hard app to write for both WatchOS and iOS. Not something that can be done from a web page "app".

Then there is this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-covid-19/id1504132184

I'd try to get answers to:

- Who will this app be used by?

- What are they doing now?

- How is this app going to help?

- Assuming that the magical technology to detect everything is already available, how exactly will this app do what it does?

- Do they really care enough to take action with the use of this app?

How about pitching it as an idea here?: https://datavant.com/pandemic-response-hackathon/

Can you also add the request to https://helpwithcovid.com/ ? That seems to be the biggest list/forum for projects.

OpenCV might be a good starting point ... they have facial recognition, and it should be possible to recognize a hand ...