How do wearables measure our body temperature?
Most wearables don't measure your body temperature today. However, given that temperature is a core vital sign, it's becoming increasingly important to build it into the latest devices. For example, the Oura ring measures your body temperature every minute directly from the skin of your finger by recording the temperature of blood flowing through the arteries.
What affects our body temperature?
Your body is a furnace. It puts out heat all the time as your body works to keep you alive. When it puts out a lot more or a lot less heat than usual, this is its way of signalling that something is wrong.
Typically, body temperature is about 37 C but normal body temperature can range between 36.1 C and 37.2 C or more. It will vary depending on how active you are or the time of day and generally older people have lower body temperatures than younger people.
Many other factors also influence body temperature including what time of day it is, your age, your sex, what you've eaten or had to drink, and for women where you are in your menstrual cycle.
Why is it important to track our body temperature?
Tracking our body temperature is important because even as little as 1–2 degrees out of normal range can indicate a serious problem. For example, an oral temperature reading of 37.8 C or higher can imply that you have a fever - generally indicative of your body fighting an infection.
On the other hand, exposing your body to extremely cold temperatures may cause your body to lose too much heat, which can be very serious and potentially even fatal. Hypothermia occurs when your body falls below 35 C and can cause your heart, nervous system and other organs to stop working normally. If left untreated, it can lead to a complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and eventually to death.
Other important applications of measuring your body temperature include whilst you're training. Your body temperature can help you spot signs of strain and recovery - as you push yourself your body temperature is likely to rise slightly and once it returns to your baseline, it's a sign of recovery.
Additionally, as mentioned earlier, variations in body temperature can help you understand which phase of the menstrual cycle you're in (For more information on this, check out our post here)
Ideally, you won't expose yourself to hypothermia or a very serious fever but it is still important to stay on top of tracking your body temperature, especially in light of COVID-19. A high temperature is one of the major symptoms for COVID-19, and so being aware of your temperature and how it varies will enable you to detect if you might have the virus.
Through the Terra API, we provide connections to a range of different devices so that your users can track their body temperature.
Below is a list of the wearables that track your body temperature today:
