Why it matters to you
Fevers can be frightening for both parent and child. Degree helps parents monitor their kids’ fever to respond quickly and effectively.
Two caring parents have used their engineering expertise to develop a smart thermometer that continuously monitors a child’s temperature. Called simply Degree, the wearable thermometer fits snugly into the child’s ear and relays information about the progress of his or her condition during a fever.
The unique device was inspired by an unfortunate event — when the daughter of Greta and Johannes Kreuzer suffered a febrile seizure, with a severe fever and sudden changes in body temperature. “You just can’t see it coming without monitoring the body temperature continuously,” Greta told Digital Trends. “We thought, it can’t be that we have the measuring technology for adults but aren’t able to monitor our children to help them when they are sick.”
Degree was designed to be light, flexible, and minimally invasive — so as to not disturb the child — while robust enough to maintain continuous monitoring. It’s placed in the ear, near the hypothalamus, which the Kreuzers call, “the body’s own temperature sensor.”
The wearable is accompanied by an app that displays the temperature on a curve graph so parents can more confidently track its progression. Alarms can be set within the app to signal sudden temperature increases or if the device has fallen out of the child’s ear.
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Degree’s accuracy was tested on adults in the heart surgery center in Munich, Germany. The wearable’s size and fitting were tested with the children of the Degree team, who were between 10 months and 12 years old. Greta said they all responded well.
“I am convinced that parents will treat fever of their children with much more confidence and without stress if they actually are able to track the temperature,” she added. “Right now, many of them feel uncertain what to do — including me with my first child — and don’t know how to help. With Degree, they can learn very fast what the best individual treatment for their child is.”
To fund Degree, the Kreuzers turned to Kickstarter, where the device is currently available for 95 euros ($104).