Understanding and supporting wearable technologies for freedivers

Abstract

In recent years wearables have evolved significantly both for mainstream wearables and wearables for freediving. Hardware and Software capabilities like new sensors, touch screens and new humanmachine interaction methods gave rise to new use cases for wearables, such as navigation support, making payments or routing below the water surface. While wearable devices in general are currently being widely examined and researched, there is a clear lack in both commercial devices and scientific literature in regard to wearable devices for divers; especially freedivers. Thus, litle to none support exists for freedivers to improve the general safety of the dive and all surrounding activities. The goal of this thesis is to contribute systems that support the freediver and to ground these systems‘ designs in an understanding of user behaviour. Furthermore, this work is intended to advance research in a scientific context and to identify gaps.