It’s hard enough having a sick kid without having to wake them up periodically to take their temperature. A new device called TempTraq wants to solve that problem. Using TempTraq, parents will be able to monitor their child’s fever from a flexible, Bluetooth-connected thermometer that sticks right on the skin—no invasive plastic thermometers needed.
TempTraq consists of a soft patch that sticks comfortably on the skin and monitors body temperatures of between 86 and 108.3 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours. The device sends data to an app available for iOS or Android, allowing parents to see when their child hit a high fever and send the information over to a pediatrician.
Selena Larson
“It sends an updated view every 10 seconds, and gives the history in a graphical format,” John Gannon, president and CEO of TempTraq creator Blue Spark Technologies, said in an interview with the Daily Dot. “You can get an alert when your child hits a specific temperature—you don’t want to wake a sick baby.”
The app lets parents add notes to the data timeline to track their child’s improvements. For instance, a parent could pinpoint when they gave their child medicine to see if helped break the a fever. Parents can simultaneously monitor multiple patches and multiple children.
TempTraq is the first consumer product to use Blue Spark Technologies’ flexible battery, the company’s key product which is already used by pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers to track shipments and temperatures across the supply chain.
Though TempTraq is marketed as a device for kids under 12, it works on anyone. When Gannon spoke with the Daily Dot on Sunday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, he was wearing a TempTraq that showed his temperature—a healthy 99.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
TempTraq may look and sound like the perfect wearable for parents, but it’s not yet available for purchase. The device is still waiting on FDA approval, which is expected to come this year.
Gannon and his team worked with 1,200 moms with kids under 12, and he says the feedback was very positive. His kids, too, have tried it, and are apparently quite impressed.
Photo by Selena Larson
