Researchers debut stylish ‘Thermal Earring,’ newest smart accessory

As is the latest trend with so many companies with wearables and smart accessories, we now have the Thermal Earring – designed by researchers at the University of Washington – which is a wireless wearable that monitors the temperature of your earlobe. Head below to learn more about the Thermal Earring.

The market is saturated with wearables that use biometrics and advanced technology to track your vitals, your steps, your heart rate, your menstrual cycle, your sleep, and more. There are popular options such as an Apple Watch, the Oura Ring, or a Fitbit, all of which monitor your health and activity in differing (yet similar) ways. Something we haven’t had, but now we do? Smart earrings.

The Thermal Earring has only been tested with six people, but even so, it outperformed a smartwatch when it came to its ability to sense skin temperature during periods of rest. According to the University of Washington, the Thermal Earring “also showed promise for monitoring signs of stress, eating, exercise and ovulation.” As for the reasons behind the design and implementation of a smart earring, co-lead author and UW doctoral student, Qiuyue Xue:

I wear a smartwatch to track my personal health, but I’ve found that a lot of people think smartwatches are unfashionable or bulky and uncomfortable. I also like to wear earrings, so we started thinking about what unique things we can get from the earlobe. We found that sensing the skin temperature on the lobe, instead of a hand or wrist, was much more accurate. It also gave us the option to have part of the sensor dangle to separate ambient room temperature from skin temperature.

Xue and Yujia Liu, another co-lead author and a UQ masters student, had to create an earring that was small enough to actually pass as a real piece of jewelry but robust enough that users would only need to charge it once every few days, which was not an easy feat. Liu:

It’s a tricky balance. Typically, if you want power to last longer, you should have a bigger battery. But then you sacrifice size. Making it wireless also demands more energy.

In order to maintain the size of the Thermal Earring, the UW team had to make sure that the earring’s power consumption remained as efficient as possible. Built within it, the Thermal Earring has a Bluetooth chip, a battery, two temperature sensors, and an antenna.

With the Bluetooth chip, the earring prototype utilizes less power than if it were directly paired with a 1:1 device; the earring shuts off and goes into sleep mode to preserve power once the temperature is read and sent.

There are several potential use cases for the Thermal Earring, even though those findings are still in the preliminary phase. As the Thermal Earring goes through more models and iterations, the researchers are hoping to eventually integrate heart rate and activity monitoring – just like we see i so many currently wearables. Xue:

Eventually, I want to develop a jewelry set for health monitoring. The earrings would sense activity and health metrics such as temperature and heart rate, while a necklace might serve as an electrocardiogram monitor for more effective heart health data.

As someone who both owns an Apple Watch (it is bulky and unfashionable) and who also loves jewelry, I am thrilled that there are young women out there designing the exact kind of wearable I would prefer.