Researchers have developed a dental brace that can monitor your health in real time. By measuring how acidic or alkaline your saliva is, it can reveal early signs of illness – and might eventually even give you medicine or vitamins while you sleep. The technology brings health monitoring right into your mouth – the place where many diseases begin.
The world of wearable health technology is evolving rapidly.
Some watches already track heart rate, and rings can analyse sleep. But now researchers are taking this one step further by developing a dental brace that measures the pH of your saliva – a subtle indicator of your health status.
If the idea works as intended, a small brace could do what only hospitals and advanced diagnostic systems can do today: continuously monitor your body’s inner balance, quietly and automatically, while you go about your daily activities.
The team behind the device – called BIOral – presented their prototype at CHI 2025, one of the world’s leading conferences on human–computer interaction. They have also published their findings in the ACM Digital Library.
“Our goal was to create a dental brace that can continuously monitor a person’s health, such as during the night – and, in the long term, even release medication when needed,” says Yijing Jiang, a PhD student at the Department of Computer Science of Aarhus University in Denmark and one of the inventors of the BIOral system. “The idea is to combine health monitoring and drug delivery in one discreet device.”
Health data straight from your mouth
The pH of saliva – how acidic or alkaline it is – says a lot about what is happening inside the human body, reflecting not only oral hygiene but also broader health status. When the balance of bacteria in the mouth changes, the pH shifts too. But hormones, diet and metabolic changes can also alter saliva chemistry.
This means that the measurements can reveal far more than the risk of cavities. They can offer early clues about infections, inflammation or other imbalances before symptoms appear.
“By measuring the acidity in the mouth, we can detect changes before illness develops,” explains Michael Wessely, Associate Professor at Aarhus University and co-developer of BIOral. “That gives us a chance to intervene early – to prevent cavities or even broader health problems.”
He adds that pH changes can already be measured in a clinic or during a hospital visit, but the idea behind BIOral is continuous, long-term tracking. Instead of a single reading taken once in a while, BIOral could build a complete record of how acidity fluctuates over time – a living diary of the human body’s internal chemistry.
Light in the mouth: how the sensor works
The technology is built around tiny optical sensors that monitor a thin, gel-like film that changes colour depending on the pH of the saliva. When the colour shifts, the sensors convert it into digital signals – enabling BIOral to record and store exact data on saliva pH, second by second.
The hydrogel itself is the key. It reacts instantly to changes in pH, turning from red to green as the pH shifts from acidic to alkaline. The oral pH straying too far in either direction can signal that something is wrong – a bacterial imbalance, early inflammation or other physiological stress.
Imagine putting the brace on at night, filling it with the gel and letting the sensor quietly measure colour changes while you sleep. In the morning, the results could appear in an app showing how your oral environment – and perhaps your overall health – fluctuated during the night.
“The app or a doctor could then interpret the data,” explains Yijing Jiang. “For instance, if the oral pH remains outside the normal range for too long, the system might advise you to see a dentist or doctor before any symptoms appear.”
From wires to medicine: development continues
For now, BIOral exists only as a prototype – and there is still work to be done before it can leave the laboratory. In its current form, BIOral does not yet have its own power supply. During testing, participants had thin wires extending from their mouths to connect the sensor to external equipment. Naturally, the finished version will not work like that.
The next challenge is to make BIOral practical – self-contained, wireless and comfortable enough for everyday use. But the researchers are not stopping there. They also want to give BIOral new capabilities.
One of the most ambitious ideas is to make BIOral capable of dispensing medication or dietary supplements such as vitamins. In this vision, BIOral would not just measure changes in health but would respond to them.
A glimpse of the future of personal health
The idea is that BIOral will contain small chambers that can be filled with medicine or vitamins and controlled electronically. When the sensors detect specific pH changes, they open a tiny valve that releases a precise dose of medication or vitamins into the mouth – for example, while you sleep.
“We are still in the early stages of developing our product,” says Michael Wessely, “but we are already exploring several functions we want the brace to perform. Like a smartwatch, it should become an integral part of how people monitor their health. The idea is that it acts as a personal gadget – but also gives doctors access to more detailed information about a person’s health.”
In a few years, BIOral could be as indispensable as your smartwatch – only far more discreet: a small piece of technology quietly monitoring your body as you sleep, eat and live your life.
