For most people, becoming dehydrated happens more often than it should. They rely on thirst, the weather, or the color of their urine. But that might be about to change. Thanks to a new breakthrough, your smartphone could soon be able to detect dehydration with just a simple touch, no extra devices required.
Developed by researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), this new system uses the same touchscreen you use every day. If implemented widely, it could turn your phone into a hydration monitor that fits right in your pocket.
Tracking if you’re dehydrated without wearing more tech
At the heart of the innovation is skin capacitance, which is an electrical property that changes based on how hydrated your skin is. Using a machine learning model trained on capacitive data from human fingertips, researchers were able to detect dehydration by how skin interacts with a smartphone screen. The less hydrated a person is, the lower their skin capacitance. It’s subtle, but measurable.
In trials involving fasting individuals and athletes, the model reached an impressive 92% accuracy in identifying dehydration. That level of precision suggests real-world applications aren’t far off. Unlike smartwatches or hydration-tracking wearables, this approach doesn’t need any specialized hardware. Just tap your finger on the screen, and the system does the rest.
From Lab to App: What Comes Next
The KAUST team is now working to integrate the technology into a real-time app. This app will notify users when their hydration dips below healthy levels. The aim is to make hydration tracking seamless and intuitive—no straps, patches, or sensors. Just your phone, doing what it already does best: keeping you connected to your health.
This development also hints at a broader future for smartphones as diagnostic tools. As health monitoring becomes more integrated with everyday tech, features like this could transform how people manage basic needs—without even noticing they’re doing it.
