Evaluation of newly developed wearable ear canal thermometer, mimicking the application to activities on sports and labor fields
I. Kato, Hironori Watanabe, Kei Nagashima
Abstract
We evaluated the reliability of a newly developed wearable ear canal thermometer based on three different experiments, in which ear canal and rectal temperature (T ear and T rec , respectively) were simultaneously monitored. In Experiment 1, participants sat at 28 °C and 50% relative humidity (RH), during which fanning or 41 °C lower legs water immersion was conducted. In Experiment 2, participants conducted a 70-min treadmill exercise (4 km/h, 0.5% slope) at 35 °C and 50% RH with intermittent fanning. In Experiment 3, participants completed a 20 min treadmill exercise (6 km/h, 5% slope) at 35 °C and 65% RH. Bland–Altman analysis for T ear and T rec showed the difference of − 0.2–0.3 °C and the limit of agreement of the mean ± 0.3–0.6 °C. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.44–0.83. The results may suggest that the ear canal thermometer is useful to assess core body temperature in sports and/or labor fields.