Taking your temperature is a simple thing, but is essentially a one-time act that’s repeated as desired. TempTraq, a $20 connected device from Blue Spark Technologies, deploys a surprising amount of technology to track your temperature for up to two days — and make it sharable as you need it to be.
The TempTraq is a patch that the user activates with a smartphone app via Bluetooth. Once activated, you apply the patch to your side, under your armpit. The patch monitors your temperature, sending it to your phone. If you like, you can share the data with whomever you like.
Note what needs to go into that patch: a Bluetooth radio, a reliably accurate temperature monitor, a flexible battery — in this case, a printed flexible battery. Also, some degree of security, so only the right person gets the temperature data. Remember, too: this need to be comfortable, so it can be worn for two days, and disposable, so there can’t be anything noxious in the patch, either.
For $20, it’s not something you’ll want to use routinely. But the applications for this are real and easily imagined.
The TempTraq is available at temptraq.com, and online at CVS, Costco, and Amazon.
Blue Spark, the company says, was founded to commercialize thin printed battery technology from Energizer.
(See all our CES2016 coverage by clicking the CES2016 tag accompanying this story.)