Current wearable tech is pretty nifty, but the CHARM (Continuous Health Analyzing Ring Module) could put our current lot to shame. Once it stops being a serious research project and makes the jump to something commercial, at any rate.
The health device, detailed in Nature, measures “glucose, ketone, ascorbic acid, uric acid, lactate, and alcohol from passive osmotically extracted sweat.” It’s also, as you can see from the image, quite a bulky critter. It’s not the sort of thing you’d wear all day. Yet. Even so, it’s capable of continuous monitoring for twelve hours at a time.
CHARM school
More advanced monitoring is where health-based wearables are headed anyway. The group of researchers from the University of California San Diego behind CHARM are just going there a little harder than most. There are no signs that there’s a commercial product in the offing, but it’s easy to see the group’s ring jumping into hospitals with little effort. For now, it’s still scientific research.
The ring currently tracks up to four biomarkers simultaneously. It’s capable of reading more than four markers; it’s just limited to four at once. The Continuous Health Analyzing Ring Module weighs just 5.1 grams, but it’s got an outer diameter of three centimetres. It also needs a hydrogel to facilitate sweat monitoring. Not useful when you’re out in public, but if you’re in a hospital bed, it’s probably more bearable.
The most likely use of the tech is for monitoring Type 1 diabetes patients, particularly with the glucose/ketone monitoring. There are other uses for other combinations, but diabetics were explicitly tested by the ring’s creators.
