Patch

Patch is a small wearable I’m building that sits at the temple and catches sleep bruxism while it happens. Bruxism is the jaw clenching and teeth grinding you do at night without knowing it. Most people only find out from a worn-down molar or an aching jaw, and the usual answer is a night guard that protects your teeth but does nothing about the clenching itself.

It started as a research question: can a comfortable wearable actually see grinding, and is there a pattern worth acting on? The rig has gone through five iterations so far, each one better at recording a full night without disturbing it.

Every morning I pull the night, line it up against sleep stages and heart rate, and label the episodes by hand.

The nights add up to a picture. Hundreds of confirmed episodes show that grinding clusters in light sleep, and that heart rate moves when an episode starts, not before it. Every reviewed night also makes the detection a little sharper.

Detection is only half of it. The goal is a version that notices an episode starting and quietly resolves the clenching without waking you. That is what I’m working toward now.