BraceIO: biosensing through hydrogel dental ligatures

Dental braces are a semi-permanent dental treatment that are in direct contact with our metabolism (saliva), food and liquids we ingest, and our environment while smiling or talking. This paper introduces braceIO, biochemical ligatures on dental braces that change colors depending on saliva concentration levels (pH, nitric oxide and acid uric), and can be read by an external device. This work presents our fabrication process of the ligatures and external device, and the technical evaluation of the absorption time, colori-metric measurement tests and the color map to the biosensor level in the app. This project aims to maintain the shape, wearability and aesthetics of traditional ligatures but with embedded biosensors. We propose a novel device that senses metabolism changes with a different biosensor ligature worn in each tooth to access multiple biodata and create seamless interactive devices.