invisible layer / body sensors
✕
experiment · internet of bodies
your body
is already transmitting.
The sensors in your phone — accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone — were built for navigation and calls. They have a second function nobody disclosed: inferring what your body is doing and how it is doing it. Activity level, tremor, stress, breathing rate, and heartbeat proxies can all be extracted without specialist hardware. No medical device required. No consent requested.
The Internet of Bodies (IoB) is not a future concept. It is already running. Wearables, phones, smart home devices, and implantables form a continuous biometric data layer. Insurance companies in the US already price premiums on wearable activity data. Employers in several jurisdictions use smart badge sensors to monitor physical proximity and stress levels. The EU's proposed IoB regulatory framework was filed in 2023 and remains unadopted. In the meantime, the data flows.
▶ which sensors and what they can actually measure

All readings on this page use sensors that require no special permission on Android and are gated only by a generic motion permission prompt on iOS 13+.

  • Accelerometer — measures linear acceleration including gravity. Detects steps, orientation, and micro-vibrations from heartbeat when placed on a rigid surface against the body.
  • Gyroscope — measures angular velocity. Jitter analysis reveals tremor frequency and amplitude. Combined with accelerometer: full 6-DOF motion capture.
  • Microphone — audio envelope (not speech content) reveals breathing rhythm, cough events, and ambient sound level. Voice stress analysis is a separate application layer.

The heart rate proxy shown requires the phone to be held still against the chest or placed flat on a table while the user sits. It measures acceleration variance at 0.8–2 Hz — the frequency band of a resting heartbeat. Accuracy is highly variable and should not be used for medical purposes.