This tiny patch could be the future of wearable technology

Over the past couple of years, the wearable segment — think smartwatches and fitness bands — seems to have grown stagnant in bringing newer biosensing capabilities on board. Yes, engineering in its miniaturized form isn’t easy, but at the same time, we have seen some startling advancements targeted at wearables. 

The latest one comes courtesy of experts at the ​​Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The team has developed a plaster that looks like a Band-Aid, capable of analyzing sweat and finding biomarkers. In the field of microfluidics, sweat is being seen as a goldmine of health-sensing data and as the next great avenue for wearable technology. 

In a research paper published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, the team describes a hydrogel-based film with separate chemical receptacles to identify lactate, urea, and glucose levels in sweat. The method is completely non-invasive, which means all the data is analyzed from the sweat appearing on the skin after any form of workout.

By Nadeem Sarwar.

Full story at Yahoo News.