A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have created an easy-to-wear, smart temporary tattoo capable of sending information to a smartphone regarding the level of alcohol in the blood.
The device, which is worn on the skin, works by detecting the level of alcohol in sweat. It could, its creators hope, be a way for individuals to monitor their personal alcohol intake.
The number of DUIs each year is enormous," Jayoung Kim, one of the authors on the paper, told Digital Trends. "Breathalyzers — which are the most commonly-used alcohol sensor — have the chance to give false-signals if, for example, you measure as soon as you finish an alcoholic drink. Therefore, we wanted to develop a wearable non-invasive alcohol sensor to give more accurate data in real-time. Hopefully it can contribute to reducing the number of DUIs.
The sensor uses a technique called iontophoresis to induce sweat on the skin under the patch. Another component then detects changes in the electric current that flows through the generated sweat.
Measuring the level of alcohol in sweat has already been tried before, but it takes 2-3 hours to read the values. The new tattoo, on the other hand, sends a reading to a user's smartphone in just eight minutes via Bluetooth.
We still have several things to do before we can bring this to market," Kim said. "Currently, we are working on testing it with a larger number of subjects to get better accuracy, and to develop a more user-friendly app. We think it would be possible to connect it with a car service like Uber or Lyft, or to send a message to a friend when you are drunk.
