Wearable Ethanol-Sensing Earmuffs Know When You've Had a Few Too Many

Engineers at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Kansai University have unveiled a pair of earmuffs that are capable of accurately tracking the wearer's blood alcohol concentration (BAC).

"Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released through skin (transcutaneous gas) has been increasing in importance for the continuous and real-time assessment of diseases or metabolisms," the researchers write in the abstract to their paper. "For stable monitoring of transcutaneous gas, finding a body part with little interference on the measurement is essential."

"In this study, we have investigated the possibility of external ears for stable and real-time measurement of ethanol vapor by developing a monitoring system that consisted with an over-ear gas collection cell and a biochemical gas sensor (bio-sniffer)."

Designed in the shell of an off-the-shelf pair of hearing protectors, the alcohol-sensing earmuffs capture the faint amount of gas which is released through the skin of the wearer's ears. An ultra-sensitive sensor checks for the presence of ethanol, and lights up when it's detected: The brighter the light, the more ethanol there is.

To gauge the sensor's accuracy, the team checked the results against a more traditional breathalyzer and found that the changes in readings between the two correlated. In other words, it should be possible to use the earmuffs to accurately estimate blood alcohol concentration (BAC) - and the same technique could be used to sense other gases as a means of screening for various diseases.

The researchers' work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports under open-access terms.