Why I started it
The project began with a personal problem: my grandmother lives with reduced sensation in her feet. I wanted to explore whether pressure sensing and immediate feedback could make otherwise invisible patterns easier to notice.
Smart Sole is a prototype and research project, not a diagnostic or medical device. Any useful version would require proper clinical input, validation, safety work, and a much clearer understanding of the people using it.
The idea
The sole measures pressure across several points under the foot and turns those readings into a live map. A feedback layer could then flag unusual loading patterns or repeated pressure in one area.
The interesting engineering problem is the loop:
- sense a physical pattern;
- turn noisy readings into something interpretable;
- communicate it without overwhelming the user;
- learn whether the feedback changes behaviour in a useful way.
Current state
The next useful step is documentation before expansion. I am inventorying the existing hardware, code, measurements, and assumptions, then drawing the system as it actually exists. That should make the gaps—especially validation and user feedback—much easier to see.