British Airways has come up with a new way to raise in-flight sleep to higher level. The airline has developed a blanket that measures a person’s brainwaves to understand how content they are. The wool color-changing “happiness blanket” has embedded tiny fiber-optic LEDs which measure the wearer’s brainwaves. If the passenger is tense, the blanket will turn red, while blue indicates the traveler is relaxed.
This new unusually technology is being tested at 30,000ft with hope that monitoring a person’s sleep and relaxation patterns will help to change and improve the in-flight experience, providing input about the type and timing of meals and in-flight entertainment.
“Using technology like the ‘happiness blanket‘ is another way for us to investigate how our customers’ relaxation and sleep is affected by everything on board, from the amount of light in the cabin, when they eat and their position in the seat,” British Airways said in a news release.
A group of volunteers on board the BA189 Dreamliner service from Heathrow to New York were among the first to try out “happiness blankets” and have their reactions tracked to identify when and how passengers are most comfortable.
While the experiment continues, the blankets will be used only for data collection and not as a way to identify passengers needs.
