Dozing off at inopportune moments can be at best embarrassing and at worst life-threatening.Now a group of students have come up with a device that tracks a person’s alertness over time and ‘nudges’ them when they are at risk of falling asleep - which could help reduce road accidents if it is worn by drivers.The gadget called Vigo, claims to be the first wearable device to quantify alertness and can send a vibration alert to keep someone awake, or give them recommendations about when to take a break.The personal device tracks patterns in blinks and body movements to alert the wearer of the gadget in realtime about when they are getting drowsy.The creators of the device believe it could be used to keep people awake during long work meetings and more importantly, on the road.Almost 20 per cent of accidents on major roads in the UK are sleep related, 40 per cent of which involve commercial vehicles, according to government statistics.Sleep-related accidents, which most often occur in the early hours and after lunch, are more likely than others to result in a fatality or serious injury, so any device that could help to keep people alert, could potentially save lives.‘The idea is simple - although your brain has a tendency to trick you into thinking you’re mentally fit enough to keep pushing on with your daily business, your body can’t hide when you’re tired, said the creators of Vigo, from the University of Pennsylvania.‘With an infrared sensor, an accelerometer, and a clever algorithm, Vigo knows you’re drowsy before you do.’The average blink takes one fifth of a second but there is a lot of information packed into that small amount of time.Vigo examines 20 parameters in blinks and watches how the variables change. This data, when combined with information about the activity a person is undertaking and their head motion, allows the device to measure mental energy and come to a conclusion about when a person is at risk of falling asleep.The gadget allows people to decide when and how it nudges them when they have been ‘idle’ for too long.A person can be alerted by a vibration, LED light or even a ‘pump up’ song to help them refocus on a task.The gadget begins to log data about an individual’s alertness the moment they start wearing the device and doesn’t stop until it is taken off.An app works with the gadget and displays important information about alertness using a traffic light system (with green for alert and red for drowsy) so that users can pick out patterns in their routine and make changes.‘Maybe you’re more drowsy on weekday afternoons, or maybe you’re in a better state in the evenings than mornings. Vigo helps you understand yourself better so you can plan your day accordingly,' its creators said.The device, which weighs just 20 grams, connects to an iPhone or Android smartphone that supports Bluetooth 4.0 and functions like an ordinary Bluetooth headset so it can be used to make phone calls too.The graduates, who created the algorithm and prototype of the device to keep them alert in lectures, have been building the device in Shenzhen, China over the past couple of months and are now raising money on Kickstarter to put the gadget into production.The gadget, which is available in black or white, is on sale on the crowd funding site for $79 (£48) - with an expected retail price of $119 (£73) - and so far the project has raised $27,654 of its $50,000 goal.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az