San Francisco-based Lir Scientific is developing a special kind of wearable device that tracks the user’s bladder fullness to help remind people to urinate. Called Brightly, the company is hoping that its device could replace adult diapers.

Designed as a patch that should be worn on the abdomen, Brightly notifies the user with either a sound or vibration when it senses that the user needs to urinate. The device will also send a notification to a connected smartphone via Bluetooth, reminding users to use the restroom. The patch has a swappable battery so that users can wear it for as long as they want.

Lir was founded and headed by Jean Rintoul, who previously worked at EEG headset developer Emotiv and the activity tracker company Basis Science, which was later acquired by Intel.

According to this Wired piece, Rintoul created a prototype device while at HAX, a hardware accelerator with offices in San Francisco and Shenzhen, China. She also mentioned Brightly’s retail price which is expected to be around $400, a much less than other devices currently used in hospitals.

Going forward, the company is preparing to launch pilots with urologists and in hospitals to further test Brightly. In the hospital setting, the device could be used to alert nurses when patients need to urinate, which would prevent them from getting bed sores from wetting the bed. Other uses cases include medical imaging and measuring lung expansion.

[Via: mobihealthnews]