Tape-Free, Digital Wearable Band for Exercise Sweat Rate Monitoring

Manik Dautta, Luis Fernando Ayala-Cardona, Noelle Davis, Ashwin Aggarwal, Jonghwa Park, Shu Wang, Liam Gillan, Elina Jansson, Mikko Hietala, Hyunhyub Ko, Jussi Hiltunen, Ali Javey*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Monitoring sweat secretion rate is essential for uncovering underlying physical conditions like hyperhidrosis, mental stress, and neural disorders. Often, flexible microfluidic sweat rate monitoring devices use tape as a means of attachment to the skin to tightly seal the collection area. While these single-use, adhesive-backed devices have lightweight and thin interfaces for mounting on the skin, their form factor complicates their potential integration with available commercial wearables, such as smartwatches. Here, a tape-free device, consisting of a 3D-printed sweat collector with a concave surface that is strapped onto the skin to form an effective seal, is presented. The materials, structure, and dimensions of the sweat collector are optimized for conformal device-to-skin contact and efficient capture of sweat. The collector is interfaced with a fluidic microchannel with embedded electrodes for continuous digital monitoring of sweat rate. Long-term exercise-induced local sweat rate from multiple body locations in both multi-subject and longitudinal studies is measured, depicting the correlation between the measured sweat profile and total body fluid loss. The simple installation procedure and reusability of this tape-free device make it a good candidate for integration with the band of a watch.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2201187
JournalAdvanced Materials Technologies
Volume8
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Mar 2023
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This work was partially supported by National Science Foundation through grant NASCENT‐1160494, and by the Berkeley Sensors and Actuators Center (BSAC) and the Bakar Fellowship. Part of the facilities at VTT was funded by the Academy of Finland Research Infrastructure “Printed Intelligence Infrastructure” (PII‐FIRI, Grant No. 320020). N.D. acknowledges support from the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Program.

Keywords

  • 3D printed
  • fluid loss
  • leakage-free
  • reusable
  • sweat rate
  • tape-free
  • wearable devices

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