The next generation of wearable technology will stick to your skin and you won’t have to remember to put it on every morning.
Chaotic Moon, an Austin-based tech design firm, is experimenting with conductive paint and electronic components, including LED lights, to build skin-mounted gadgets that could be used to monitor vital signs or hold credit card information.
Chaotic Moon’s Tech Tats, as it calls them, stick on and wash off like a temporary tattoo. That means that they would be relatively cheap. The devices are still in development, but the company told Techcrunch that it’s in talks with several groups to market them.
Other groups are developing similar tattooed technology, Engadget reports. Motorola has filed a patent for a microphone tattoo that would be imprinted on your throat. At University of California, San Diego, researchers created a adhesive tattoo that monitors exercise and generates power from sweat.
Parents could slap one on their kids at the first sign of illness to monitor their temperature and hydration levels, or ahead of attending a crowded event to track them down if they get lost. The military could use them to monitor soldiers’ health or determine if they have been hurt.
Eric Schneider, creative technologist at Chaotic Moon even claims that, like traditional tattoos, tech tats could look good—if you like the cyborg look.