Smart thermometers were among the earliest wearable tech devices. Soft thermometer patch developers stressed the advantage of remote monitoring with very young or ill patients because you don’t need to wake them up in order to take their temperature. In 2016, for example, we wrote about Railing’s iThermonitor which added cloud storage of temperature data to the commonly used Bluetooth wireless connectivity. In 2015 researchers at the University of Tokyo developed a self-powered, printed armband that sounded an alarm and sent alerts if the wearer’s skin temperature exceeded a preset level.
In mid-2019, iWeeCare announced that the company’s Temp Pal wearable smart thermometer received European CE and Taiwan’s FDA approval. An iWeeCare representative recently informed us that hospitals in Taiwan and Thailand deployed Temp Pal’s cloud-based continuous temperature monitoring system to combat COVID-19. The City of Nanking, China is distributing Temp Pal wearables to residents in self-quarantine, according to a company release.
In addition to the Temp Pal’s patient-side benefits, iWeeCare also noted the protective advantage for healthcare professionals. When they use the Temp Pal platform, medical professionals significantly reduce their own exposure to COVID-19. Healthcare systems are becoming overwhelmed due to infected care workers; this is a major threat for patients with the virus, for patients with other illnesses, and for staff. Fever is one of the early indicators of COVID-19 and the Temp Pal system has the potential to provide as much or more protection for medical workers as it does for patients.
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