Fitness trackers are exceptionally popular nowadays with consumers, though they’re still pretty basic in their abilities. Even the more capable heart rate monitoring devices typically require users to stop what they’re doing to give the sensor a chance to do its thing while the skin is at rest. Moreover, for ease of use these are typically wrist-worn devices that the user can easily glance at and remove as necessary. Researchers at the University of Tokyo believe that these limitations can be overcome with their new highly flexible thin film that can integrate electronics and be stuck just about anywhere onto the skin.
The researchers built a proof-of-concept oximeter that measures blood oxygenation in the skin and displays the output on an LED display on top of the skin. The total thickness of the entire device is only 3 μm, considerably thinner than skin itself.
Here’s a demo of the device provided by the researchers at U of Tokyo:
Study in Science Advances: Ultraflexible organic photonic skin…