Incorporating Wireless Strategies to Wearable Devices Enabled by a Photocurable Hydrogel for Monitoring Pressure Information

Advances in emerging technologies for wireless collection and the timely analysis of various information captured by wearable devices are of growing interest. Herein, a crosslinked ionic hydrogel prepared by a facile photocuring process is proposed, which allows wearable devices to be further incorporated into two wireless integrated systems for pressure monitoring applications. The device exhibits a simplified structure by effectively sharing functional layers, rather than conventional two separate combinations, offering the salient performance of iontronic sensing and electrochromic properties to simultaneously quantify and visualize pressure. The developed smart patch system is demonstrated to monitor physiological signals in real-time utilizing the user interface of remote portable equipment with the Bluetooth protocol and on-site electrochromic displays. Moreover, a passive wireless system based on the magnetic coupling effect is designed, which can operate free from the battery and simultaneously acquire multiple pressure information. It is envisioned that the strategies would hold enormous potential for flexible electronics, versatile sensing platforms, and wireless on-body networks.