Lume Health Unveils First Wearable to Continuously Measure Hormones Through Sweat at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Lume Health, a health technology company pioneering continuous hormone monitoring, today unveiled its first wearable designed to continuously measure hormones through sweat, bringing traditionally lab-based hormone testing to the wrist. The company was selected for Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 and is presenting the technology on stage today.

Wearables have transformed how people understand their bodies by enabling continuous tracking of heart rate, sleep, glucose, body temperature, and more. Yet hormones remain a major blind spot. Despite constantly shifting throughout the day and influencing how people feel, sleep, and perform, hormones are still largely measured through occasional blood or saliva tests that capture only a single moment in time.

Lume is introducing a new dimension to hormone measurement: time. Its wearable sweat sensor continuously measures hormones from the wrist, providing a window into how hormone levels change throughout the day and how those patterns may relate to everyday behaviors. The Lume sensor sits on the inside of your wrist and attaches to existing smart wearables, like an Apple Watch or Fitbit. Early Lume users emphasized the importance of integrating with devices they already wear, rather than asking them to add another wearable. That approach is already resonating with consumers: more than 25,000 people have joined Lume’s waitlist, driven in large part by organic interest and engagement with the company’s TikTok and Instagram content. Lume is currently in beta development, with a full launch targeted for 2027.

“What we’re building is essentially a miniature lab on your wrist,” said Vicki Powell, co-founder and CEO of Lume Health. “Hormones are constantly changing. So much of the value comes from measuring how your hormones change over time, which meant making something easy to wear was important to us from the start. Nobody likes needles, so we wanted to find a way to make continuous hormone measurement needle-free. Giving people the ability to see those changes as they happen can help them understand how their own behaviors and environment may influence their biology.”

Turning Sweat Into a New Health Signal

The technology grew out of research by Lume co-founder and CTO Dr. Jonathan Moustakis exploring the relationship between markers found in sweat and blood. Early studies found that markers in sweat closely correlate with markers in blood, leading to the development of Lume’s first intellectual property and proprietary sensing technology.

To detect the extremely low concentrations of hormones in sweat, Lume developed a proprietary three-stage amplification technique that can detect signals at picomolar and even femtomolar concentrations. The company has miniaturized technology traditionally requiring expensive laboratory equipment and specialized expertise into an autonomous sensor worn on the wrist.

Lume is beginning with cortisol, a hormone that follows a natural daily rhythm, typically rising in the morning and declining toward evening. By continuously measuring cortisol, Lume aims to reveal not simply a hormone level at one point in time, but its pattern throughout the day. That distinction matters because cortisol cannot be understood simply as “high” or “low.” Its daily rhythm and how that pattern changes over time may provide a more meaningful picture of what is happening in the body. Research has found that disruptions in the body’s natural daily cortisol rhythm are associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes (Source: National Library of Medicine, 2017).

“We are measuring something that’s never been measured before, which is the rhythm of your hormones,” said Dr. Jonathan Moustakis. “That’s why seeing the pattern over time, rather than a single measurement, could be so valuable. That continuous view has the potential to give us an entirely new way of understanding what is happening in the body over time.”

Bringing a New Layer of Biology to Wearables

Lume was founded by Powell and Moustakis to bring molecular-level health information out of the laboratory and into everyday life. Powell previously worked as a mechanical engineer at Apple, developing next-generation sensor technologies for products including Apple Watch and AirPods. Moustakis is a physician by training with a background spanning clinical medicine and research.

Beginning with cortisol, Lume’s platform is designed to measure multiple biomarkers simultaneously from a single patch, with estrogen and progesterone planned next. Over the past three years, Lume has built a proprietary dataset comprising thousands of hormone data points, deepening its understanding of cortisol patterns and informing new product capabilities planned for 2027. Looking ahead, Lume aims to expand to additional hormones and biomarkers, making changes at the molecular level more visible and helping people better understand how everyday factors such as sleep, exercise, and stress may affect their biology. The goal is to provide earlier insight into changes in the body and help people make more informed decisions that support healthier years.

To join the Lume waitlist for early access to preorders, visit https://www.lumehealth.io/.