ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Comput. Sci.

Sec. Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomp.2025.1575404

This article is part of the Research TopicWearable Computing, Volume IIIView all 3 articles

Unobtrusive Stress Detection Using Wearables: Application and Challenges in a University Setting

Provisionally accepted
Peter  NeigelPeter Neigel1*Andrew  VargoAndrew Vargo1Benjamin  TagBenjamin Tag2Koichi  KiseKoichi Kise1
  • 1Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan
  • 2University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

In theory, wearable physiological sensing devices offer an opportunity for institutions to monitor and manage the health and well-being of a group of people. For instance, schools or universities could leverage these devices to track rising stress levels or detect signs of illness among students.Advances in sensing accuracy and utility design in wearables might make this feasible; however, real-world adoption faces challenges, as users often fail to wear or use these devices consistently and correctly. Additionally, institutional monitoring raises privacy concerns.In this study, we analyze real-world data from a cohort of 103 Japanese university students to identify periods of cyclical stress while ensuring individual privacy through aggregation. We identify potential stress patterns by observing elevated waking heart rate (HR) and maximum waking HR, supported by related metrics such as sleep HR, sleep heart rate variability (HRV), activity patterns, and sleep phases. These physiological changes align with significant academic and societal events, indicating a strong link to stress. Our findings demonstrate the potential of consumer wearables to detect collective changes in stress biomarkers within a cohort using inthe-wild data, i.e. data that is noisy and has gaps. Furthermore, we explore how universities could implement such monitoring in practice, highlighting both the potential benefits and challenges of real-world application.

Keywords: wearables, Rings, Wellness, stress, In-the-wild

Received: 12 Feb 2025; Accepted: 04 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Neigel, Vargo, Tag and Kise. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Peter Neigel, Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan

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