The Current · Future Electronics

The Next Generation of Temperature Sensors

·26 min·2 clips

Joris Rolls reveals how wearables could predict illness a day before symptoms appear.

Temperature sensors are no longer quiet background parts. The host treats them as embedded components under pressure from tighter accuracy, precision, power, and package limits. Joris Rolls joins from Molexis, and the conversation keeps coming back to infrared sensing as a real design problem rather than a parts rundown. An ear sensor can get close to core temperature. A wrist sensor has a tougher job and needs more time, plus other readings. People also differ, which is where Joris sees continuous monitoring and personalized algorithms helping health services learn a person's baseline over time. The environment keeps getting in the way. The host pushes on how engineers remove surrounding temperature effects from the target reading, especially when the target is the body. Non-contact thermometry has that weakness baked in. Joris says outside heat can disturb the sensor, so package design matters as much as the sensing element. The package becomes part of the measurement. He points to a TO can with a window for incoming radiation, an older-looking package that still does serious work. That small detail gives the episode its engineering flavor. Form factor, sensitivity, and environmental stability all tug on each other. Near the end, the host points listeners toward support for cloud connections and server-level artificial intelligence when designs need a broader system around them. The episode stays practical: familiar sensors get much harder once healthcare and embedded products demand individual, continuous, context-aware readings.

As heard by us

A focused look at why temperature sensing is becoming a tougher embedded design problem.

The episode treats temperature sensing as a design problem that keeps getting harder, with attention to accuracy, precision, low power, and very small size.

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Why you'd press play

Practical sensor tradeoffs for compact designs that need accurate, reliable temperature readings.

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