Smart accessories are increasingly common. Rings and watches track vitals, while Ray-Bans now include cameras and microphones. Wearable tech has even broached brooches. Yet certain accessories have yet to get the smart touch.
University of Washington researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that repeatedly monitors a user’s earlobe temperature. In a study of six users, the earring outperformed a smartwatch at sensing skin temperature during times of rest. It also showed promise for monitoring signs of stress, eating, exercise and ovulation.
The smart earring prototype is in regards to the size and weight of a small paperclip and has a 28-day battery life. A magnetic clip attaches one temperature sensor to a wearer’s ear, while one other sensor dangles about an inch below it for estimating room temperature. The earring may be personalized with fashion designs product of resin (in the form of a flower, for instance) or with a gemstone, without negatively affecting its accuracy.
Researchers published their results Jan. 12 in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies. The device just isn’t currently commercially available.
“I wear a smartwatch to trace my personal health, but I’ve found that loads of people think smartwatches are retro or bulky and uncomfortable,” said co-lead writer Qiuyue (Shirley) Xue, a UW doctoral student within the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “I also prefer to wear earrings, so we began excited about what unique things we will get from the earlobe. We found that sensing the skin temperature on the lobe, as a substitute of a hand or wrist, was rather more accurate. It also gave us the choice to have a part of the sensor dangle to separate ambient room temperature from skin temperature.”
Making a wearable sufficiently small to pass as an earring, yet robust enough that users would need to charge it only every few days, presented an engineering challenge.
“It’s a difficult balance,” said co-lead writer Yujia (Nancy) Liu, who was a UW masters student within the electrical and computer engineering department when doing the research and is now on the University of California San Diego. “Typically, in case you want power to last more, you must have an even bigger battery. But then you definitely sacrifice size. Making it wireless also demands more energy.”
The team made the earring’s power consumption as efficient as possible, while also making space for a Bluetooth chip, a battery, two temperature sensors and an antenna. As an alternative of pairing it with a tool, which uses more power, the earring uses Bluetooth promoting mode — the transmissions a tool broadcasts to point out it will possibly be paired. After reading and sending the temperature, it goes into deep sleep to avoid wasting power.
Because continuous earlobe temperature has not been studied widely, the team also explored potential applications to guide future research. In five patients with fevers, the typical earlobe temperature rose 10.62 degrees Fahrenheit (5.92 degrees Celsius) compared with the temperatures of 20 healthy patients, suggesting the earring’s potential for continuous fever monitoring.
“In medicine we regularly monitor fevers to evaluate response to therapy — to see, as an example, if an antibiotic is working on an infection,” said co-author Dr. Mastafa Springston, a clinical instructor on the Department of Emergency Medicine within the UW School of Medicine. “Long run monitoring is a solution to increase sensitivity of capturing fevers, since they will rise and fall throughout the day.”
While core body temperature generally stays relatively constant outside of fever, earlobe temperature varies more, presenting several novel uses for the Thermal Earring. In small proof-of-concept tests, the earring detected temperature variations correlated with eating, exercising and experiencing stress. When tested on six users at rest, the earring’s reading varied by 0.58 F (0.32 C) on average, placing it throughout the range of 0.28 C to 0.56 C essential for ovulation and period tracking; a smartwatch varied by 0.72 C.
“Current wearables like Apple Watch and Fitbit have temperature sensors, but they supply only a median temperature for the day, and their temperature readings from wrists and hands are too noisy to trace ovulation,” Xue said. “So we desired to explore unique applications for the earring, especially applications that may be attractive to women and anyone who cares about fashion.”
While researchers found several promising potential applications for the Thermal Earring, their findings were preliminary, because the focus was on the range of potential uses. They need more data to coach their models for every use case and more thorough testing before the device may be utilized by the general public. For future iterations of the device, Xue is working to integrate heart rate and activity monitoring. She’s also inquisitive about potentially powering the device from solar or kinetic energy from the earring swaying.
“Eventually, I would like to develop a jewellery set for health monitoring,” Xue said. “The earrings would sense activity and health metrics corresponding to temperature and heart rate, while a necklace might function an electrocardiogram monitor for more practical heart health data.”
Joseph Breda, a doctoral student within the Allen School, was a co-author on the paper. Vikram Iyer, a professor within the Allen School, and Shwetak Patel, a professor within the Allen School and the electrical and computer engineering department, were co-senior authors. This research was funded by the Washington Research Foundation.
