The Embr Wave targets thermoreceptors to influence the perception of temperatures.

Photos Courtesy of EMBR Labs

Keeping your cool

Embr Labs’ Wave wearable device helps you regulate how you feel temperature

by Rosie Wolf Williams

After coming in from a blustery fall day, my home seems toasty warm. But after a few minutes, my body adjusts to the indoor temperature—and I start thinking about turning up the thermostat.

Your body perceives temperature changes caused from things like coming inside on a cold day, hot flashes, anxiety and stress as individual reactions. Those reactions may be relieved with the Embr Wave Wristband, a wearable device that warms or cools the wrist and affects thermoreception—the sense of heat or cold in the brain.

Lab experiments lead to success

In 2013, MIT students were conducting experiments in an air-conditioned lab. Despite the fact that it was summer, they resorted to wearing jackets and hoodies to manage the temperature.

“They said to each other, ‘This is crazy. Why are we still controlling temperature from the wall thermostat?’ ” says Embr CEO Elizabeth Gazda. Inspired, they created a team to enter MIT’s MADMEC, a materials-science design competition.

While researching and developing the technology, a group of students consisting of Michael Gibson, Matt Smith, Sam Shames and David Cohen-Tanugi found that human skin is sensitive to small changes in temperature. Using the wrist as the contact area, the students discovered that heating or cooling the area alone can make the entire body feel warmer or cooler by several degrees. The team won the competition, landing a $10,000 prize that allowed them to continue their work.

“MIT put out a news article … and they started getting emails asking when the device would be available. The majority of the interest was from women in menopause, asking how this can help with hot flashes,” says Gazda.

Gibson, Smith, Shames and Cohen-Tanugi built and tested prototypes, and in 2016 came up with a wearable product design that could be mass-produced. They launched the first-generation Wave in 2017 through a Kickstarter campaign, raising approximately $700,000, and the first consumer product was available in 2018. Although Gibson and Cohen-Tanugi moved on, Shames remains as COO of Embr Labs, with Smith as CTO of the Boston-based company. Gazda, who has a background in technology and startups, came on board in 2018 as CEO.

The Embr Wave is worn on the wrist and can be fine-tuned with a companion app.

The science behind the Wave

When the skin feels cold or hot, the brain perceives that the entire body is experiencing that temperature. The Embr Wave delivers temperature sensations in waveforms (think of an ocean wave rolling in and out).

“The thermoreceptors in your body are stimulated by temperature change,” Gazda says. “The real breakthrough was that if we used waveforms rather than consistent temperature sensations, we keep those receptors firing and continue to get the full brain and body response.”

Women with perimenopause or menopause symptoms typically experience hot flashes when hormonal changes in the body cause the brain to send a signal that the body is overheating. The Embr Wave can activate a cooling sensation at the wrist to send a different signal to the brain. The new message can help stop the hot flash.

Embr Labs is currently developing new technologies to take the power of temperature even further. “I think temperature is a new science, and it is not well understood,” says Gazda. “Understanding temperature and the human experience is very new, and this is a breakthrough way of bringing health and wellness to people by having them leverage their body’s own systems.”