Origami is a wonderful art form, but as a new project from the Shibaura Institute of Technology demonstrates, it can also have applications in the world of wearable tech.

The project involved creating paper-based sensors that could be worn on the body. These sensors were designed to be self-folding into helical forms, which would allow them to adapt neatly to the wearer over a wide range of body dimensions. This was achieved by using a standard inkjet printer to print patterns onto a flat piece of paper, with the printed patterns creating a self-folding behavior in the paper itself. Copper tape was then applied to the paper in order to act as an electrode for picking up triboelectric signals and measuring galvanic skin response. The idea is that these methods could be used to quickly and easily produce custom low-cost wearable sensors for a range of applications.

We’ve featured all kinds of interesting wearable hacks over the years, from power delivery via skin to shirts that will hide you from automated surveillance system. If you’re working on your own fancy projects that hang, clip, or dangle from the human body, don’t hesitate to let us know on the tipsline.

[Ayushmaan] states up front that most of his free time is spent “building things that probably didn’t need to exist”. Well, this one might be an anomaly, because it seems pretty useful to us.

HYDR8, as it says on the tin, is a wearable that knows when it’s time to hydrate. The impetus for this one was something we all chase: the flow state. [Ayushmaan] would sit down, get deep into work, and look up hours later to to find that he had a headache and a full water bottle. Phone reminders were soon swiped away in annoyance.

This wearable is based on a XIAO ESP32-C3. It reads heart rate, oxygenation, skin temperature, and both the ambient temperature and humidity. It also learns your personal resting numbers range.

Taking all of this into consideration, it generates a heat/hydration stress score between 0-100. The thing is, HYDR8 tells you specifically what to do; sometimes it’s ‘drink water’ and other times, it’s ‘find shade’.

The wearable itself, while somewhat chunky, is pretty simple: it only shows the time and a message when it matters. The ESP32 hosts a full dashboard on your phone.

Keep in mind that this is not a medical device, it’s an experiment, a prototype. It can’t measure how hydrated you are. Instead, it measure hydration stress.

If you don’t want to wear anything, here’s a smart straw that uses a tiny turbine flowmeter and a Hall effect sensor to record the volume sipped, and detect whether the sipper is low on fluids. And if you find yourself under the hot lights of a wet bulb event, here’s how to survive it.

The Adiaro charm bracelet offers a stylish incentive to begin journaling your daily mood, and it does so while riding atop the scientifically proven benefits of the habit.