Massachusetts-based Lumia Health debuted at CES in Las Vegas a wearable that tracks blood flow to the head.

It is designed to help people better understand and self-manage chronic symptoms of dizziness, brain fog, fatigue and fainting made worse by standing.

Since emerging from stealth in 2023, the company completed a 30-day $560,000 crowdfunding campaign, sold out of pre-order inventory, secured more than $3.6m in contracts with multiple government agencies, and completed shipments to its beta customers.

Clinically tested at top institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Duke and Harvard Medical School, Lumia technology has been refined by the experts in blood flow monitoring. Published at the 2024 American Autonomic Society Conference, the technology has been clinically shown to correlate strongly with the gold standard, transcranial doppler ultrasound, with a Pearson correlation of 0.91 for carotid flow time, a measure of blood flow to the head.

At the 2024 Dysautonomia International Conference, the Lumia flow index was found to correlate better with orthostatic symptoms than traditional heart rate metrics.

Hundreds of Lumia beta testers are already finding value in the blood flow data, demonstrating engagement with over 12 hours of daily wear time and over 40 minutes of daily mobile app use, showing its utility as a self-help tool. The biofeedback helps Lumia members see how lifestyle factors such as posture, hydration, compression garments and other daily activities affect blood flow to their head, improving self-awareness and encouraging lifestyle adjustments to avoid exacerbating symptoms.

The wearable weighs less than 1g and is more than five times smaller than Apple Airpods. It tracks blood flow by tapping into a shallow artery in the ear, a branch of the external carotid artery, which runs parallel to the brain’s primary blood supply. This strong arterial signal is crucial to enabling the wearable’s cardiac data. Unlike wrist wearables which suffer from data corruption due to arm movement, the Lumia wearable lets users track blood flow through various activities of daily living. Most users say the wearable is so comfortable and unobtrusive they completely forget they are wearing it.

“Blood flow to the head is the critical missing vital sign for millions suffering from chronic illnesses affected by dizziness, light-headedness, brain fog, fatigue and fainting made worse by standing,” said Lumia Health CEO Daniel Lee. “After almost five years, we’ve finally unlocked the potential of the ear to track it in a user-friendly wearable, offering unparalleled insights into these often-misunderstood illnesses. While we are focused on chronic brain blood flow illnesses to start, our preliminary research shows that multi-day blood flow monitoring also has the potential to revolutionise many of healthcare’s costliest conditions, from fainting and falling in older adults, to improving in-patient fluid management for sepsis and heart failure. “

Since its launch, Lumia Health has raised $10.4m in funding, with additional venture financing and government research contracts. The wearable has undergone various clinical pilot tests at medical institutions, and has been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the American Autonomic Society.

Lumia Health (www.lumiahealth.com), formerly known as Stat Health, is a digital health company founded in 2020 and backed by venture capital firms, government grants and a growing community of early adopters. The founders, Daniel Lee and Paul Jin, previously ran Bose’s Health Product Innovation Group, and Lee was the inventor of Bose sleepbuds.