Startup Builds Sensors That Will Analyze Sweat to Track Your Health
Startup Builds Sensors That Will Analyze Sweat to Track
Your Health
BY DAVEY ALBA
11.07.14 6:30 AM
When you exercise, you sweat. It can be gross, but it
helps your body cool down. And it’s packed with useful data.
That’s the pitch from Joshua Windmiller and Jared
Tangney, the co-founders of a startup called Electrozyme. The company makes
biosensor strip that can sit on the surface of your skin and read chemical
information from your sweat, aiming to show how your body is reacting to
strenuous exercise.
The tool can analyze the chemical composition of your
perspiration on the fly, then provide insights about your hydration, fluid
loss, and electrolyte balance. Windmiller described the technology on Thursday
at this year’s Internet of Things Summit in San Francisco, and he says the
company is already in talks to incorporate it into existing fitness trackers
and other wearables.
The aim is to go beyond the usual set of physical metrics
offered by other wearables. “Other wearables measure the same things: pace,
heart rate, number of steps taken,” Windmiller says. “And that can be
limiting.”
It works like this: The biosensor strips will slip right
into third-party fitness trackers, most likely on the backside, so it touches
the wearer’s skin. Embedded electrochemical sensors will then detect biomarkers
contained in sweat—like electrolytes, sodium, lactate, proteins, etc.—that give
indications about the physical state of the body. The company will provide
algorithmic software that can analyze the data and provide personalized
recommendations for your ongoing workout regime.
The company will use printer sensor technology to build
the strips, so that they’re cheap and disposable. In other words, you can toss
the icky, soaked thing in the trash after your sweat session.
Initially, the company hopes to tell you when you need
take in more fluids, how much you need to drink, and whether you should go for
water or a sports drink. It may also tell you when you’re approaching risk of a
heat stroke or otherwise overexerting yourself in the heat, and Windmiller and
Tangley are working on insights surrounding the prevention of cramping. In the
future, the plan to work on other stuff, too. This might include that ability
to measure muscular fatigue, physical exertion level, respiration and dermal pH
levels, in addition to electrolyte balance and dehydration.
Windmiller and Tangney formed Electrozyme in 2012, but
Windmiller’s work on electrochemical sensors goes four years back, when he was
an electrical engineering post-doc at the University of California, San Diego.
So far, the platform has been tested on a hundred people in a field trial with
an undisclosed Fortune 100 strategic partner, and according to the co-founders,
the number of testers—and interest in the platform—is growing.
Currently, the plan is to license Electrozyme’s platform
early to mid-2015, with real devices incorporating the technology coming by the
end of next year. The strips will only be able to interface with approved
devices that license the platform.
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