A Low-Cost Wearable Proof-of-Concept Heater for Thermal Therapy Applications

Source abstract

Conventional manufacturing techniques and materials used to fabricate wearable and flexible electronics are often complex, resource-intensive, and costly, due to their reliance on cleanroom-based microfabrication and multilayer architectures, significantly limiting their accessibility and widespread adoption in low-cost and scalable applications. Despite these challenges, wearable electronics have become increasingly prevalent across biomedical, consumer, and research domains, creating a strong demand for manufacturing approaches that are reliable, scalable, and economically viable. In biomedical research and engineering, thermal therapy and thermal management play a critical role and have been extensively investigated for applications such as localized drug delivery, pain management, tissue conditioning, disease prevention, and physiological modulation. In this work, we present a class of low-cost wearable electronic devices fabricated using readily available, and cost-effective manufacturing techniques. By leveraging micro-laser patterning combined with crafting materials such as packaging tape and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films, we developed a proof-of-concept, flexible, aluminum-resistive wearable heater capable of controlled and localized heat generation (<70 ºC). The device exhibits mechanical flexibility and conformability, enabling placement on multiple anatomical locations of the human body upon medical adhesive film placement. Thermal performance was characterized through experimental measurements to evaluate heating behavior, efficiency, and repeatability. Circuit-level heat activation was implemented using a conventional tunable 5V DC-DC step down. The results point date controllable thermal output highlighting the potential of this approach as proof-of-concept for wearable thermal therapy. Overall, this work introduces a feasible low-cost, replicable manufacturing strategy for wearable devices requiring reliable thermal management, opening pathways toward accessible thermal therapy solutions and broader wearable electronic applications.