Untapped Potential for Earbuds in Health Monitoring

Image credit: University of California San Diego

Ubiquitous wherever you look, the humble earbud can now be used as a tool to record and monitor integrated data in the body, including brain activity and levels of lactate.

Such advances have been made possible with the addition of two flexible sensors screen-printed onto a stamp-like flexible surface, developed by researchers from the University of California San Diego.

The sensors send signals to the earbuds, which then transmit the data to a smartphone or computer for analysis.

Researchers report this is a first for integrating the sensing of brain and body signals in a single platform.

“Earbuds have been around for decades, and in many ways were one of the first wearable devices on the market,” said study co-author, Professor Patrick Mercier.

“This research takes important first steps to show that impactful data can be measured from the human body simply by augmenting the capabilities of earbuds that people already use on a daily basis.

“Since there are no major frictions to using this technology, we anticipate eventual wide scale adoption.”

Check out this exciting tech in action in the video below:

For further information, refer to the research paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering or check out this story from the University of California San Diego.