Epicore Biosystems' Wearable Hydration-Monitoring Gx Sweat Patch Launches Alongside Companion App

Released in partnership with PepsiCo's Gatorade, the Gx Sweat Patch is one of the first flexible, wearable sensors to reach the mass market.

A wearable sensor which monitors hydration through sweat analysis, developed by Epicore Biosystems, goes on sale this week as a consumer product — under the Gatorade brand as the Gx Sweat Patch.

The idea of tracking a user's health by monitoring their sweat isn't new: Sweat sensors have been developed, which monitor hydration, stress, athletic performance, vitamin levels, and even drug uptake — but few have landed on the market as a consumer product.

Epicore Biosystems' sweat sensor, however, has made the leap. Developed in partnership with PepsiCo, Epicore's hydration-monitoring wearable is now in stores nationwide — and is being sold under PepsiCo's Gatorade brand of sports-centric drinks.

The Gatorade-branded sensor made headlines a year ago when research suggested it could be modified to read cytokine levels, rather than sodium chloride levels, as a means of warning in advance of an impending cytokine storm created as a result of infection from SARS-CoV-2. While the commercial variants available now don't do that, they do track hydration levels — and in bright colours, too, with sweat wicking into micro-channels to be dyed orange then switching to purple to reflect the concentration of chorine ions.

While the patch itself has no electronics, it's designed to be paired with a smartphone app that analyzes the color changes through the camera in order to generate a "sweat profile" — and make recommendations on how much Gatorade you should drink as a result.

More information on the Gx Sweat Patch is available on the Epicore Biosystems website, while the patch has launched this week across the US at $24.99 for a two-pack; capturing a single "sweat profile" consumes one patch, which is discarded after use.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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