Human-Centric Wearable Platform for Work Safety Monitoring: Navigating Between Protection and Privacy

The adoption of wearable sensor platforms is expanding beyond personal health tracking towards workplace environments. While such systems are commonly used in hazardous work scenarios, continuous monitoring of environmental factors in everyday workplaces remains limited. This paper introduces a human-centered wearable sensor node platform to monitor workplace conditions such as air quality and particulate matter concentration. We present the architecture and real-world evaluation of a platform tailored for non-life-threatening working conditions, with a strong focus on the human worker. We investigate the platform's impact, user perceptions, and potential concerns through a week-long field study and qualitative user interviews. Our findings discuss the platform's technical aspects and highlight challenges related to data management, privacy, and user well-being. This ensures that technological advancements align with worker needs and expectations.