Puffer

Breathing is a natural, continuous process, yet stress often disrupts our awareness of it, leading to shallow and irregular patterns. To address this, we introduce Puffer, a social robot that guides users’ breathing through soft, sequential tactile cues. While prior soft robotic systems support breath regulation, Puffer is distinct in its use of silicone pores that inflate and deflate in a traveling sequential wave synchronized to the user’s physiological state.