Reimagining Wearable Sensing: Smart Jewelry for Unobtrusive Health Monitoring

Abstract

Health and wellness are fundamental to everyone's life, yet effective monitoring outside clinical settings remains a challenge. Wearable devices have emerged as a promising solution due to their direct contact with the human body, enabling continuous physiological sensing. However, current wearables often fail to meet the demands of practical health monitoring due to limitations in accuracy, functionality, and user comfort. For example, smartwatches struggle with accurate heart rate and temperature measurements because their wrist placement is susceptible to motion artifacts and is far away from the core body. Moreover, existing wearables are unable to continuously monitor many critical physiological signals, such as electrocardiography (ECG), blood pressure, and more. This dissertation advances unobtrusive health monitoring in people's daily lives by creating the next generation of wearable devices without adding any burden to users. Imagine everyday accessories transformed into intelligent systems that are small and lightweight enough not to let users notice. These devices are passively part of the user with ultra-long battery lives. Most importantly, the unique placement of these innovative wearables allows for capturing advanced physiological signals, enabling new health capabilities. In this dissertation, I will introduce three novel wearables that ensure long-term comfort by preserving their original form factors and achieving month-long battery life: Thermal Earring, PPG Earring, and ECG Necklace. These novel wearable devices demonstrate three core contributions: (1) Improved sensing accuracy by leveraging new body locations that offer stronger and more stable physiological signals, unlocking new applications for daily wellness. (2) Enhanced continuity through low-power system design that supports continuous, uninterrupted monitoring. (3) Expanded sensing capabilities that traditional wearables cannot achieve by rethinking the form factors. In conclusion, this dissertation demonstrates that creating the next generation of wearable devices can unlock new health insights and applications by enabling truly unobtrusive monitoring in everyday life.