Fluspot: Seasonal flu tracking app exploiting wearable IoT device for symptoms monitoring

Technological advances offer new opportunities and scope for greater involvement of IoT applications and systems in medicine and more specifically in the prevention of communicable diseases, such as seasonal flu or more contagious various such as the latest COVID-19. The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges in the development as well as the possibilities opened by applications that track the transmission of diseases and how IoT systems can be used to record symptoms. Exploring the potential of these applications will highlight the benefits and necessity for their development. For the purposes of this research, the Fluspot application was developed. Fluspot aims to contribute to the prevention of widespread seasonal viruses transmission by raising public awareness and offering timely information. Fluspot proactively monitors symptoms of fever using a wearable IoT system and also collects user input about the transmission of seasonal viruses. These data, anonymised and aggregated are presented on a map to give a better view of the situation per region. In order to study the acceptance and concerns of users about such a monitoring and tracking system, a survey was conducted using a questionnaire.