Sensors for wearables and IoT feature at US event

"For the Internet of Things to deliver on its promises, it will be necessary to develop new sensors that give more accurate and more meaningful data" said Dr Guillaume Chansin, Technology Analyst at IDTechEx. "Printed electronics is a fundamentally different way to manufacture hardware, including new types of sensors for the IoT."

Wearable devices will also greatly benefit from printed sensor technologies. For example, Electrozyme is a startup company developing printed wearable biosensors for application in sports, fitness, wellness, and healthcare.

Joshua Windmiller, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Electrozyme believes that innovation in sensor technology will be the deciding factor for the success of wearables: "Innovation is stagnating in the wearable devices domain. New wearable device emerge on a daily basis, nearly all of which feature the same sensing capabilities - heart rate, motion, skin conductivity and the like. It is for this reason that one of the unspoken maladies in the wearable technology field is the lack of customer engagement several months following their wearable device purchase. In essence, such devices are thrown into the sock drawer following periods of inactivity never to be used again. This fate would never confront a user's smartphone", he said.

"Printed electronics will serve as an enabling technology that will fuel the development of the next generation of wearable devices and allow product developers to realize wearable designs that have widespread appeal."

At the conference, Dr Windmiller will present skin-applied biosensors for metabolite and electrolyte quantification as well as epidermal biofuel cells able to continuously scavenge useful levels of power from the perspiration. "Particular emphasis will be placed on low-cost, high-throughput methods leveraged to fabricate such devices as well as the challenges that confront the emergent field of epidermal biosensors going forward", he added.