admin
[ad_1]
Smart accessories are increasingly common. Rings and watches track vitals, while Ray-Bans now There are cameras and microphones.. Wearable tech has even broached Brooch. However, some accessories are yet to get the Smart Touch.
Researchers at the University of Washington have introduced a thermal earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors the temperature of the user’s earlobe. Image credit: Raymond Smith/University of Washington
Researchers at the University of Washington have introduced a thermal earring Wireless wearables Continuously monitoring the user’s earlobe temperature. In a study of six users, the earring outperformed a smartwatch in sensing skin temperature during resting periods. It also showed promise for monitoring stress, diet, exercise and ovulation symptoms.
The prototype smart earring is about the size and weight of a small paper clip and has a battery life of 28 days. A magnetic clip attaches a temperature sensor to the wearer’s ear while another sensor dangles about an inch below to gauge the room temperature. The earring can be personalized with a resin fashion design (for example in the shape of a flower) or a gemstone without adversely affecting its accuracy.
The researchers published their findings. In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies. The device is currently not commercially available.
“I wear a smartwatch to track my personal health, but I find that many people think that smartwatches are unfashionable or bulky and uncomfortable,” said the co-lead author. Qiuyue (Shirley) XuePaul G. Allen is a UW doctoral student in the School of Computer Science and Engineering. “I also like wearing earrings, so we started thinking about what unique things we could get from the earlobe. We found that it was more accurate to feel the skin temperature on the lobe rather than on the hand or wrist. This also allowed us to have a part of the sensor hanging to separate the room temperature from the skin temperature.
The smart earring prototype shown here is about the size and weight of a small paper clip and has a battery life of 28 days. Image credit: Raymond Smith/University of Washington
Making a wearable small enough to pass as an earring but sturdy enough for users to charge it every few days presents an engineering challenge.
“It’s a difficult balance,” said the co-lead author Eujia (Nancy) Liu, who was a UW master’s student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the time of the research and is now at the University of California, San Diego. “Typically, if you want the power to last longer, you have to have a bigger battery. But then you sacrifice size. Making it wireless also requires more energy.
The team made the earring’s power consumption as efficient as possible while also making room for a Bluetooth chip, a battery, two temperature sensors and an antenna. Instead of pairing it with a device, which uses more power, the Bally uses a Bluetooth advertising mode – the device that broadcasts to show it can be paired. After reading and sending the temperature, it goes into deep sleep to save power.
Because constant airlobe temperatures have not been widely studied, the team also looked for potential applications to guide future research. In five patients with fever, the average temperature of the earlobe increased by 10.62 degrees Fahrenheit (5.92 degrees Celsius) compared to the temperature of 20 healthy patients, demonstrating the earlobe’s ability to continuously monitor fever.
“In medicine we often monitor fever to assess response to therapy — for example, to see if an antibiotic is working on an infection,” said the co-author. Dr. Mustafa Springsteen, clinical instructor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the UW School of Medicine. “Long-term monitoring is one way to increase sensitivity to catching fevers, because they can rise and fall throughout the day.”
While core body temperature is usually relatively constant outside of fever, earlobe temperatures vary more, offering several new uses for thermal earring. In small proof-of-concept tests, Bali tracked temperature variations with food, exercise and exposure to stress. When tested on six users at rest, the earring’s readings varied by an average of 0.58 F (0.32 C), keeping it between 0.28 C and 0.56 C, which is necessary for ovulation and period tracking. A smartwatch varies by 0.72 degrees Celsius.
The smart earring can be personalized with a fashion design made of resin — such as the flower shown here — or with a gemstone, without negatively affecting its accuracy. Image credit: Raymond Smith/University of Washington
“Current wearables like the Apple Watch and Fitbit have temperature sensors, but they only provide the average temperature for the day, and temperature readings from their wrists and hands track ovulation,” Xue said. Makes a lot of noise to do,” said Zoe. “So we wanted to explore the unique applications of earrings, especially those that could be attractive to women and anyone who cares about fashion.”
While the researchers found several promising potential applications for the thermal earring, their findings were preliminary, as the focus was on the range of possible uses. They need more data to train their models for each use case and before the public can use the tool. For future iterations of the device, Xue is working to integrate heart rate and activity monitoring. She is also interested in potentially powering the device with solar or kinetic energy from the swing of the earring.
“Finally, I want to develop a set of jewelry for health monitoring,” said Zhou. “The earrings will sense activity and health metrics like temperature and heart rate, while the necklace can act as an electrocardiogram monitor for more efficient heart health data.”
Source: University of Washington
[ad_2]
