We never know how our future may look, but looking at recent developments, we can say that it will be very interesting. We’ve seen smart watches, jewelry, and clothing. Even the way we apply temporary tattoos has had a technological facelift. Now, e-tattoos are being explored to change the way health monitoring systems and more work.
This e-tattoo is much more than body art — it could help track your health in the future. pic.twitter.com/04dVwd8zL7
— WebMD (@WebMD) December 16, 2017
What is an e-tattoo?
An e-tattoo is made of conductive ink having unrecognizable sensors printed on human skins to monitor health. These tattoos have surface mount devices making circuitry that calculates blood sugar level, blood pressure, heart rate, and hydration level and transfers data to a connected device such as cellphones or smartwatches.
E-tattoo is a circuit printing technology enabled through 3D printing, which contains electrodes. These electrodes work on electrophysiology current, a very low amount of current in the body due to the continuous flow of ions in body tissues. Its circuitry consists of polymer-like substances, gold, or graphene.
Did you know the leading cause of death in Texas is heart disease?
This new e-tattoo can help us in the fight against heart disease by making monitoring easier and more accurate: https://t.co/mvDBA4DfLI via @CockrellSchool pic.twitter.com/MH0VuvKtB0
— UT Austin (@UTAustin) June 22, 2019
Applications
E-tattoo is still in the development phase and will take time to get into any major application on the market. However, there are talks of using these temporary tattoos in the health industry such as monitoring a patient or checking for skin hydration and pH values.
Apart from that, it seems that there is a future full of opportunities for e-tattoos in deep medical science such as helping a patient stimulate muscle contraction and improve the movement of prosthetic limbs. Bill Gates also recently endorsed the idea of a smart tattoo becoming part of our daily life in the near future.
Conclusion
E-tattoos might penetrate the market with time but still require much development to reach commercial scalability. In the meantime, things will become more interesting as Microsoft tries to work on a printed remote control on the skin to improve experiences in entertainment such as gaming and music.
YouTube: E-Tattoo for heart health monitoring!
Photo credit: The feature image is symbolic and has been taken by Julia Giacomini.
Sources: Kelly McSweeney (NOW) / Euronews and Reuters (Euronews) / PhysicsCentral / Tel Aviv University / Chris King (EuroWeekly News)
