We all know that drinking and driving is not only a bad idea—it’s illegal. And yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly a third of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S. involve alcohol. So, if we can’t exercise better judgment, maybe technology can help. A professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and his students are developing an app with the hope that it will prevent us from getting behind the wheel after a few drinks.
The app is called AlcoGait. Not the catchiest of names, but it’s a prototype with big ambitions. As computer science professor Emmanuel Agu explains it, the idea is to provide a reality check for those who underestimate how drunk they are.
“What happens is when you drink alcohol, the first part of your brain to be affected is the part that tells you if you're too drunk to drive,” says Agu.
Using the gyroscope and accelerometer that are already built into every smartphone, AlcoGait’s algorithm captures your movements when you’re sober—specifically, your gait. It only needs about a minute to memorize your so-called sober walk. Once it does that, it’s able to detect changes in your strut as you drink. The idea is to turn on the app right when you start drinking. It works passively, so you don’t need to enter anything as the night goes on.
“If you sway much more than your sober baseline, then it concludes that you're drunk,” Agu says.
Christina Aiello wrote a lot of the code behind AlcoGait, and she walks me through how it works. After launching the app, she enters my profile info-- gender, age, height and weight. This also allows it to track my blood alcohol content.
“Now we need to get a baseline, so we need to know how you walk when you're sober, so we're going to do that first,” Aiello says. “I'm going to click 'start,' lock the screen, and you have to put it in your pocket, then you're going to hear a dinging noise, and that's when you know you start walking.”
Aiello slips the phone into my pocket. I go for a walk up and down the halls of Worcester Polytech’s Fuller Labs. It takes a few tries for the app to register my walk because I’m wearing a skirt. For now, AlcoGait works best in pants pockets but that’s something the team is working to improve.
The app now knows how I walk when I’m completely sober. The true test is what happens after I put on the Drunk Buster Goggles, which blur my vision and completely disorient me. This particular pair simulates impairment associated with a blood alcohol content of .15-.25. For me, that’s about 3-4 drinks in an hour.
“At that point, you're way past the legal limit and nearing the point where you're probably going to want to go to the hospital, honestly.” Aiello says.
I stumble down the hallway again, occasionally bumping into the wall. When the AlcoGait app detects the swaying movements, an alert goes off. The alarm is persistent—and that’s the point. Aiello says the user can set it up so that the alert will notify a friend. In this case, the Aiello is alerted.
“What the app has told me is that my friend, who's using the AlcoGait app, has reached an estimated BAC range of 0.25 or higher.” Aiello says, looking at her smartphone.
Aiello says that friend can then call an Uber or send a taxi over.
But the question remains—would people actually use AlcoGait? After all, don’t many of us like to think we exercise good judgment?
Nancy Barnett, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University, studies the intersection of alcohol use and internet-based technologies. She says she’s always hesitant when an app comes out making a claim like this.
“There are many, many more apps out there that say they are supposed to help you do things,” says Barnett. “Everything from lose weight to stop smoking-- that haven’t been well validated or tested. So I’m always hesitant.”
That said, there is growing interest in one’s own bio-data. Just look at the rise of the Fitbit, the smartwatch and the growing number of apps that capture our daily movements. People are interested in what their bodies are trying to tell them and Barnett says that would be the driving factor.
“I do think that you know, someone who is interested in using this is interested either in the fun of it like ‘oh I wonder if it will tell me I’m too drunk or when I’m too drunk’ and being curious about that but also people who are serious and saying I want some feedback.”
The breathalyzer will always be the gold standard but so far, AlcoGait’s accuracy rate is 90% based on the 50 people they’ve monitored-- but it will take a large-scale study with lots of booze to put the app to the ultimate test. Agu is optimistic it will happen if funding comes through this spring.
In the meantime, just be careful.
