What will they come with next, you may ask. At a time when people are trying to determine the most effective mask comes news of a special mask which can monitor your health.

Engineers at Northwestern University have developed a new smart sensor platform for face masks that they are calling a “Fitbit for the face”.

Dubbed FaceBit, it uses a tiny magnet to attach to any N95, cloth, or surgical face mask to sense the user’s real-time respiration rate, heart rate, and mask wear time.

All health information transmitted to a smartphone app immediately alerts the user when issues unexpectedly arise, such as elevated heart rate or a leak in the mask.

“You might not even realise that your mask is loose because you cannot feel it or you are too burnt out to notice. We can approximate the fit-testing process by measuring mask resistance. If we see a sudden dip in resistance that indicates a leak has formed, and we can alert the wearer,” said Northwestern’s Josiah Hester, who led the device development.

Powered by a tiny battery, the Facebit can harvest energy from any variety of ambient sources, including the force of the user’s breathing, motion, and heat from a user’s breath, as well as from the sun, increasing the time between charges.

Hester hopes to make the device completely battery-free by harvesting thermal and kinetic energy.