Wearable smart devices like tattoo stickers?

I remember when I was a kid, my bubble gum always had some kind of tattoo sticker in it, and at the time, it was a 'trend'. Now that the kids have grown up, these tattoos are outdated, but who would have thought that researchers would have come up with a "new type of tattoo sticker" that would fit modern aesthetics and be full of technology, which is super cool.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States have come up with a new way to make smart wearable devices stick to the body like tattoos. The technology is called, ElectroDermis, and is the result of a ****together effort by engineers in the university's Soft Machines Lab and Morphing Matter Lab. It allows electronic devices used for medical, health or lifestyle purposes to be 'attached' to the skin.

Wearable devices have become an increasingly promising way to interact with each other, and ElectroDermis technology is a major innovation in existing wearable technology. Instead of being rigid, ElectroDermis exhibits the ability to be flexible and resilient to human skin, compared to traditional smartwatches, smart glasses, and other devices.

This new technology for smart electronic devices is more comfortable, soft and has an alternative aesthetic: a robot-like mechanical sense, but also effectively reduces the "weight" of smart wearable devices.

The researchers presented their paper at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, saying, "We envision a future in which electronic devices can be temporarily attached to the body in a way that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

The biggest difficulty facing ElectroDermis and similar projects is the flexibility of the electronics. While engineers at the University of Tokyo have created tattoo sensors that can be worn for a week, the Carnegie Mellon group, led by Eric Markvicka and Guanyun Wang, wanted to create more complex devices, not just sensors but also signal processing, wireless communications, and other technologies.

The Carnegie Mellon team made the wearable devices soft and malleable by attaching flexible copper wires to rigidly fixed electronic chips.

ElectroDermis attaches smart electronics to the body with a spandex blend and a medical-grade adhesive film that can be reused by renewing the medical-grade adhesive film.

ElectroDermis creates "smart tattoo patches" that take only an hour to make and can be affixed to the body for hours or days. The technology can be used to monitor vital signs, track health signals, measure food consumption, and make smart bandages.