Smart earrings can monitor a person’s temperature

Smart accessories are becoming more and more common. Rings and watches track vital signs, while Ray-Bans now come with cameras and microphones. Wearable technology has even addressed pins. Still, some accessories haven’t yet received the smart touch.

Researchers at the University of Washington have introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable device that continuously monitors the temperature of the user’s earlobe. In a study of six users, the earring outperformed a smartwatch in detecting skin temperature during rest periods. It has also shown promise for monitoring signs of stress, diet, exercise, and ovulation.

The smart earring prototype 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 user’s ear while another sensor hangs about an inch below to estimate ambient temperature. The earring can be personalized with trendy resin creations (in the shape of a flower, for example) or with a precious stone without affecting its precision.

The researchers published their results 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 found that many people think smartwatches are old-fashioned or bulky and uncomfortable,” said co-lead author Qiuyue (Shirley) Xue, a doctoral student at the UW at Paul G. Allen 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 discovered that sensing the temperature of the skin on the lobe, rather than on the hand or wrist, was much more accurate. It also gave us the ability to dangle part of the sensor to separate ambient temperature from skin temperature.

Creating a wearable device small enough to serve as an earring, but sturdy enough that users only had to charge it every few days, presented a technical challenge.

“It’s a delicate balance,” said co-lead author Yujia (Nancy) Liu, who was a UW master’s student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the time of doing the research and is now at the University of California, San Diego. “In general, if you want the power to last longer, you should have a bigger battery. But then you sacrifice size. Making it wireless also requires more power.”

The team made the earring’s power consumption as efficient as possible while still leaving room for a Bluetooth chip, a battery, two temperature sensors, and an antenna. Instead of pairing with a device that uses more power, the earring uses Bluetooth advertising mode: transmissions broadcast by a device to show that it can be paired. After reading and sending the temperature, it goes into deep sleep to save power.

Because continuous earlobe temperature has not been widely studied, the team also explored potential applications to guide future research. In five patients with fever, the average earlobe temperature increased by 10.62 degrees Fahrenheit (5.92 degrees Celsius) compared with the temperatures of 20 healthy patients, suggesting the potential of earlobe ear for continuous monitoring of fever.

“In medicine, we often monitor fever to assess response to treatment, for example to see if an antibiotic is working on an infection,” said co-author Dr. Mastafa Springston, clinical instructor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. of State. UW School of Medicine. “Longer-term monitoring is one way to increase the sensitivity of capturing fevers, as they can wax and wane throughout the day.”

While core body temperature generally remains relatively constant outside of fever, earlobe temperature varies more, presenting several new uses for the thermal earring. In small proof-of-concept tests, the earring detected temperature variations correlated with diet, exercise, and stress.

When tested on six users at rest, the earring’s reading varied by 0.58 F (0.32 C) on average, placing it in the range of 0.28 C to 0.56 C necessary for monitoring ovulation and periods; a smart watch varied by 0.72 C.

“Current wearable devices like the Apple Watch and Fitbit have temperature sensors, but they only provide an average temperature for the day, and their wrist and hand temperature readings are too noisy to track ovulation said Xue. “So we wanted to explore unique applications for earrings, especially ones that might be appealing to women and anyone interested in fashion.”

Although the researchers found several promising potential applications for the thermal earring, their findings were preliminary because they focused on the range of potential uses. They need more data to train their models for each use case and more extensive testing before the device can be used by the public.

For future iterations of the device, Xue is working to integrate heart rate and activity monitoring. She also wants to power the device from solar or kinetic energy from the swinging of the earring.

“Eventually, I want to develop a jewelry set for health monitoring,” Xue said. “Earrings would detect activity and health metrics such as temperature and heart rate, while a necklace could serve as an electrocardiogram monitor for more effective heart health data.”