At the South by Southwest (SXSW) event in Austin, Texas this week, the National Kidney Foundation has partnered with materials researchers to show off a sweat-monitoring patch as a way to raise awareness of staying hydrated. Developed at the laboratory of John Rogers, now at Northwestern University, who has been a pioneer of flexible electronic technology, the patch measures the amount of sweat released by the skin as well as how salty the sweat is. This provides an indicator of how hydrated you really are. The patch is designed to work over a 30 minute period, ideally during an exercise routine that results in breaking a sweat.
Here’s a quick video from Northwestern about this project: