UCSD creates wearable blood-alcohol sensor

The San Diego Union-Tribune

By Gary Robbins

August 1, 2016

UC San Diego says it has created a small, wearable sensor that can measure a person’s blood-alcohol level and wirelessly send the data to laptops, smartphones and other electronic devices.

The experimental sensor is meant to give consumers a fast, accurate way to measure their alcohol consumption to help them avoid driving while intoxicated. Doctors and law enforcement officers also could use the device to evaluate and monitor a person’s sobriety level.

The device was developed at the Jacobs School of Engineering and is still at the proof-of-concept stage, having been tested on only a small number of people. The test results were recently reported in ACS Sensors, an academic journal.

Researchers said the device is partly composed of a temporary tattoo that is applied to a person’s skin, where it electrochemically measures the alcohol in their sweat. The tattoo is attached to a light-weight circuit board that sends the information to electronic devices.

One of the device’s developers, doctoral student Jayoung Kim, said in a statement, “When you’re out at a party or at a bar, this sensor could send alerts to your phone to let you know how much you’ve been drinking.”

Kim works at the university’s Center for Wearable Sensors, which earlier developed a wearable device that measures glucose levels.