UC San Diego Engineers Build a Smart Ring That Reads Sweat for Glucose and More

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a smart ring that continuously measures six chemical biomarkers in sweat, alcohol, glucose, ketone, lactate, vitamin C and uric acid, and sends the data to a smartphone app. The work, described in the journal Nature Communications, was led by co-first authors Tamoghna Saha, Shichao Ding and Siyu Qin in the lab of Professor Joseph Wang.

The researchers describe their device as a compact, fully integrated smart ring that monitors multiple chemical biomarkers simultaneously in real time, extending beyond commercial smart rings, which track only physical signals such as heart rate or sleep. Commercial rings only provide biophysical information, said Saha, a postdoctoral researcher, but they lack molecular information about biochemical markers that offers deeper insight about a person's health status.

The ring uses an osmotic hydrogel method to sample sweat, so it does not require the wearer to exercise enough to sweat naturally, making it usable by people with sedentary jobs, those physically unable to move or sweat, or people who are sleeping. In trials, the ring performed well compared with continuous glucose monitors used by people with type 1 diabetes and with commercial ketone-tracking blood meters. It offers 12-hour continuous monitoring and calibrates to a wearer's individual biomedical factors, with two months of calibration stability.

Wang said a ring capturing dynamic molecular data in real time could help people make informed decisions about health, diet and lifestyle, and that tracking glucose and ketone together could aid insulin dosing for diabetes management.