The best weird social distancing tech of 2020 so far

Humans are social animals, which is why we can use all the non-human help we can get in our attempts to stop the spread of coronavirus by staying six feet away from each other.

To meet the current moment, companies and crafty individuals have developed a number of technological innovations to encourage and enforce social distancing. Some are delightfully low-tech, some are alarmingly intelligent, and others are straight up silly.

With cases surging in the U.S. and no vaccine in the in sight, the need to stay socially distant will continue even as people’s determination wanes.

That’s what the robots are for.

Here’s some of the best, weirdest, and even scariest social distancing tech of 2020.

1. Wearables for workers

A number of companies are coming out with devices that clip on to hard hats, wrists, or belts, and sound an alarm if the wearer gets within six feet of another person. A company called Triax is marketing its “Proximity Trace”wearable to construction companies, so workers on job sites can maintain a safe distance. It does more than just beep: it also collects data on worker interaction so it can serve as a tool for contact tracing if an employee does contract coronavirus. Another company called LociLabs has a product called SafeSpace, made as either a watch or a badge, that acts similarly.

Monitoring your workers’ every move and interaction: what could go wrong?

2. 6-foot alarm backpack

TikToker RyderCalmDown made a “DIWhy” video where he built his own social distancing alarm and put it all in a backpack. For the tech savvy health enthusiast who also likes to always carry a computer on their back, this is PERFECT.

3. Amazon Distance Assistant

Despite the fact that Amazon has fired employees who speak out on the working conditions resulting in the spread of coronavirus at Amazon warehouses, the company says it wants to keep its workers safe — with A.I.!

Amazon has created and made available to the public open-source software called Distance Assistant. As deployed in Amazon warehouses, a camera watches the space and is able to determine through depth perception if people are six feet apart from each other. It displays a live feed of the space on a monitor, which is overlaid with a green circle if that person is maintaining adequate distance from others, and a red circle if they’re getting too close.

Amazon has already deployed the Distance Assistant in “a number” of warehouses, and according to Amazon, employees find it “helpful.”

4. Bumper Tables

A Baltimore restaurant called Fish Tales didn’t want to stop slangin’ lobsters and beer, even with coronavirus spreading. So they ordered sets of “bumper tables” from a company called Revolution Event Design & Production to help people dine on seafood while maintaining their social distance.

The bumper tables are just what they sound like: They are large circular tubes with a six foot diameter, with a hole in the middle, and a flat surface between the hole and the tube. Diners stand in the middle of the tube-on-wheels, and have a spot to rest their food and beer, and a bouncy barrier between them and other diners. Honestly? Ingenious.

5. Wave VR live concerts

Large concerts with arenas full of people are likely a long way off in our socially distanced world. A company called Wave was perfectly positioned to bring people into a new concert venue: the virtual one.

Wave transports artists and audiences into “virtual” spaces, which often take the form of epic animated concert venues. Artists are affixed with movement and sound monitoring tech that lets Wave generate an animated version of the artists and their dance moves and guitar strums in VR. Viewers can watch the concerts in VR or stream them on platforms like YouTube. This is social distancing tech in that it helps us keep our distance from others, while still allowing us to experience group events.

6. Pool noodle exoskeleton

Welcome to the highest tech concept on this list. One man in San Francisco decided to enforce social distancing by creating a Dr. Octopus-like backpack of pool noodles. He attached wooden dowels and backpack straps to a cardboard frame that he wears on his back. The colorful flailing plastic tubes keep other dog walkers on his routes through the park at bay — his dog even got a doggy noodle backpack, too. And according to Hoodline, he recently tricked out the noodles with inner flashlights so they light up.