Title: An IoT smart clothing system for the visually impaired using NFC technology

Authors: Reham Alabduljabbar

Addresses: Information Technology Department, College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: The selection of appropriate clothing to match one's daily life is an important ritual for individuals across the globe. But this can be a Herculean task, especially for the visually impaired. Together with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm and enabling technologies, solutions to improve the quality of life for visually impaired people have arisen. This paper proposes an IoT-based smart clothing system (EZwear) to enable visually impaired individuals to select and find appropriate clothing within their closets. The main underlying technical components in the solution are the use of an NFC (Near Field Communication) and a smartphone and its applications. By combining these technologies, we can transform a smartphone into an NFC reader that can provide sound information to the visually impaired user. The system enhances the ability of the visually impaired person to independently and comfortably manage their closets. The results show that the system performed reasonably and achieved the usability requirements.

Keywords: IoT; internet of things; visually impaired; smart clothing; mobile application; NFC; assistive technology; sensors; network; special needs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2022.120273

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2022 Vol.38 No.1, pp.46 - 57

Received: 25 Feb 2021
Accepted: 25 Feb 2021
Published online: 13 Jan 2022 *

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