Find answers to common questions
about the student-founded startup and technology.
A sensing approach is being explored that aims to reduce potential risks found in some traditional electronic sensing methods. The goal is a safer, reliable concept for absorbent garments, with cost and usability in mind. This is an early-stage, student-founded research effort.
Many current smart products rely on electrical or optical sensing. Common trade-offs include: requiring specialized, costly garments; higher false-alarm rates at low cost and higher prices at the premium end; and limited ability to estimate levels of wetness rather than just an on/off signal.
Potential use cases include elder-care and long-term care settings, hospitals, therapy centers, and day-care facilities where reliable, routine monitoring can improve comfort and reduce workload. The project continues to learn from users and caregivers to refine real needs.
A functional prototype has been built to test and demonstrate the core concept. It has helped validate the basic idea and provide insights into design, testing, and iteration. The current prototype is wired for simplicity, and the next step is to refine toward a smaller wireless version.
The wired prototype is roughly the size of two fingers placed side-by-side. It is a reusable, clip-style unit that attaches to an absorbent garment. The design goal for a future version is a compact, finger-sized device.
No. The concept is a separate, clip-on unit intended to work with common absorbent garments rather than dedicated, single-use products.
The research aims to support both: an end-point alert based on thresholds and an estimate of relative wetness for better decision-making.
The current prototype is wired for testing. A key part of the next phase involves exploring low-power wireless integration for real-time monitoring on common devices, which is expected to improve usability.
Power has been a design constraint from the start. Approaches are being tested that can run on a small battery for extended periods, avoiding bulky components and focusing on low-power operation.
During the development of the prototype, insights from caregivers and clinicians were gathered. Some of these early conversations began as the problem was defined, and they continued as the design evolved. Their feedback informed future improvements.
A provisional patent application has been filed to protect the core idea while the project continues to evolve. Ongoing work focuses on refining the design and learning from testing, with the intention of strengthening the invention during development.