Researchers at the University of Washington (United States) have developed a wireless portable device that continuously monitors the temperature of the earlobe to, with this information, know the stress levelsthe diet and physical activity of the person who wears them.
Therman Earring is a prototype device attached to an earring. It is a long format that has a maximum width of 11.3 mm and a length of 31 mm. Its weight is 335 mg and it has an autonomy of 28 days of use, as they have announced in the summary of their project.
The researchers believe that, unlike other wearable devices, such as ‘smartwatches’, their prototype takes advantage of the position of the earrings, close to the head, to offer more precise data about the human body.
So much so that, according to a study carried out by its developers, this smart earring was able to determine the temperature of the user’s earlobe more accurately than a smart watch.
University of Washington doctoral student and co-lead author of the device, Qiuyue Shirley Xue, explained that the idea to develop Therman Earring came from thinking about “unique data that can be obtained from the earlobe.”
“We discovered that feeling the skin temperature on the lobe, rather than on the hand or wrist, was much more accurate,” said the researcher, adding that the slope format also allows room temperature to be separated from temperature. of the skin.
Likewise, this device, which is currently not available for commercialization, “was promising for controlling signs of stress, diet, exercise and ovulation,” as stated in a blog post from the American university institution.
Research that allows us to analyze stress
The researcher from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of this university and co-author of the project, Yujia Nancy Liu, has assured, for her part, that its balanced design was “complicated.”
This is because, to obtain greater battery life, you must have a larger one, in addition to making it wireless also required more energy. For this reason, the developers opted for a structure made up of a Bluetooth chip, a battery, two sensors temperature and an antenna.
To save power, after connecting to another device and reading and sending your earlobe temperature, it automatically goes into a deep sleep mode until needed again.
In this sense, researchers have insisted that one of the main uses of this device is to know if the user has a fever, since in this state, the temperature of the ear varies more than that of the rest of the body, as it is closer to the head.
On the other hand, the team that created Therman Earring – a research project funded by the Washington Research Foundation – has commented that they thought about how they could use it with “unique applications” focused on women, to understand their ovulation process.
However, its authors hope to develop complements for these earrings, such as a necklace that, unlike earrings, which would detect activity and health metrics, “could serve as an electrocardiogram monitor to obtain more effective cardiac health data.”
In addition to lobe temperature, they have also explained that this device can measure stress levels. This is because they have discovered that stressors, such as speaking in public or taking exams, cause temperature changes in the earlobe.
RISE OF SMART PLUG-INS
This proposal is somewhat reminiscent of the one proposed by the German company NOVA Products at the beginning of last year. NOVA H11 smart audio earrings, designed like a jewel with gold and silver plating.
These are headphones covered in freshwater pearls that allow the user to be aware of their surroundings while listening to music or on a call with their directional sound technology, which directs it directly towards the ears starting from the earlobe.
Meta, for example, made the leap into accessories through a partnership with Ray-Ban. In 2021 she launched smart glasses, which arrived in Spain for 329 euros.
The Ray-Ban Stories have a dual 5 megapixel (MP) photo and video camera, built-in audio to listen to music and make video calls. Likewise, they allow you to save, edit and share photos and videos on social networks and, in their latest generation, they allow you to interact with the Meta AI assistant.
Samsung is another of the companies that has also opted for the accessories segment. Apart from its Galaxy Watch watches, it has done so with a ring, Galaxy Ring, which it presented last January. This is capable of “tracking, measuring, monitoring and uploading information related to health, fitness and sleep.”
This means that the ring has very similar functionalities to those already presented by Amazfit Helio.
This is a smart ring for athletes that introduces the ability to monitor blood oxygen level and make predictions of race results.
