Wearable sweat sensors have entered the market promising easy, accurate, repeatable, and in some cases, real-time feedback on sweat fluid and sodium losses. But do the claims live up to the hype? In this episode, we’ll unpack who these devices might be relevant to, the options currently available on the market, how they work, and most importantly, are they accurate?
Timestamps:
01:01 - Fueling Endurance updates - eBook, Practitioner Membership, Podcast
05:31 - What are wearable sweat sensors?
12:08 - The first step - smart sweat patches
13:39 - Reusable, wearable sweat sensors
20:31 - Nix Biosensor device
22:38 - hDrop
23:09 - Flowbio - newly published validation study
28:47 - My own experiences and comparisons
35:06 - Where does this leave us now?
36:20 - Additional considerations
41:39 - The problem interpreting individual validation studies
43:29 - Wrap up
Research mentioned in this episode:
Baker LB. et al. (2020). Skin-interfaced microfluidic system with personalized sweating rate and sweat chloride analytics for sports science applications. Sci Adv. 6:eabe3929. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe3929
Bandiera D. et al. (2026). Sweat sodium composition and sweat loss estimation through wearable sensors and predictive equations in dry and humid hot conditions. Front Physiol. 16:1717275. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1717275
Fueling Endurance eBook | T -12 Race Nutrition Course | Practitioner Resources
The Fueling Endurance eBook contains answers to 49 of the most common nutrition questions that runners, cyclists and triathletes ask, and contains insights, tips, and quotes from experts and athletes. The T -12 self-guided course will help prepare you for your next event, with online tools, guides, information and instructions to take you through the 12 weeks leading up to race day. And the Fueling Endurance Practitioner Membership provides access to online tools and calculators I use all the time when working with endurance and ultraendurance athletes. This includes working out the carbohydrate needs for runners (road and trail) and cyclists for different types of training sessions. For more into on each of these, check out fuelingendurance.com.
