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New Smart Helmet Alerts Miners and Construction Workers to Stay 6 Feet Apart
December 9, 2020

New smart helmet alerts miners and construction workers to stay 6 feet apart

Hard hats are used in a number of industries and are especially important as a protection device for construction workers, and miners underground. However, their design hasn’t changed much since they were first invented and patented in 1919.

Safety is paramount for people working in these industries, including adapting to new technologies. But why has the hard hat rarely been updated? 

A Canadian communications company, Jannatec Technologies (Jannatec) asked that precise question. Based in Sudbury, Ontario, the company specializes in mining industry communications technology.

The team at Jannatec has created the ENSO SmartHelmet. It’s an all-in-one hard hat that improves safety, efficiency, and comes equipped with cameras, phones, lights, and even includes contact tracing — something extra useful during the ongoing pandemic.

The ENSO SmartHelmet is like “a cellphone on your head,” Jannatec’s Project Manager, Mark Burnett, explained on a phone call to us.

Like most new tech, this smart helmet improves communication and offers a broad range of services. Unlike new tech, however, it’s also able to fully function deep underground, providing miners with higher visibility LED 360 degrees lighting, radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging, proximity detection, biometrics monitoring, photography and video capabilities, and more.

The proximity detection capability has recently been further enhanced, said Burnett, to provide contact tracing for miners during the COVID-19 pandemic. The LED high-visibility Johnny lights on the helmets now light up on each miner’s hart hat when they are within six feet of each other (the minimum distance to stay safe during the pandemic), and only switch off when the wearers move further apart.

Keep reading on InterestingEngineering.com