Brittany Barreto, Ph.D., is a podcaster, an entrepreneur, and a molecular and human geneticist. (In other words, she’s really smart.) Read her column to learn about what’s happening in the world of technology and innovation in women’s health.
October is Menopause Awareness Month.
Is perimenopause gaslighting you? You can spend an entire afternoon wondering why you're suddenly sweating through your shirt, forget the whole thing by dinner, and then sit across from your clinician three weeks later saying, “I don't know why, but I’ve just been feeling off.”
That’s part of what makes this transition so frustrating. Hot flashes can appear out of nowhere. Sleep can unravel. Anxiety may spike. Words that normally roll off your tongue can suddenly feel like they're hiding behind a locked door. But, unlike a blood pressure reading or a broken bone on an X-ray, many menopause symptoms depend on us noticing them, remembering them and describing them later.
What if technology could pay attention when we can't?
Four emerging products are approaching menopause symptoms from very different directions: one measures them, one tricks your temperature-sensing system, one cools your bed before you wake up, and one is listening for patterns in your voice.
These tools are consumer wellness products, not FDA-cleared treatments for menopause. Research supporting them also varies widely, so think of them as technology that may complement, not replace, evidence-based menopause care or conversations with your clinician.
Perimenopause can turn you into an amateur detective of your own body.
How many hot flashes did you have this week? Were the night sweats worse before your period? Did you sleep badly because of hormones, stress, that second glass of wine or all three?
By the time you’re sitting in a clinician’s office trying to reconstruct the last three months, your notes may amount to: Sweaty. Tired. Weirdly anxious. Maybe Tuesday?
Peri is trying to make that conversation a little less vague.
The wearable is designed specifically for perimenopause and continuously collects physiological information associated with symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances and anxiety. It also tracks activity and allows users to add information about their menstrual cycle, diet, medications and other habits.
(Photo/Courtesy Peri)
Basically, your smartwatch may know you walked 8,000 steps. Peri wants to know why you woke up sweaty at 3:17 a.m.
Hot flashes aren’t just something you feel. They can cause measurable changes in the body, including changes in skin temperature and sweating. Peri uses biosensors to capture those types of signals over time and looks for patterns between symptoms, activity and lifestyle.
The goal isn’t simply to tell you that you had a rough night. The system combines that information into personalized insights and generates a wellness report that users can share with their clinician. Peri also suggests questions to bring to appointments based on the patterns it detects.
That could be useful because memory isn’t always the best symptom tracker — especially when one of the things you’re trying to describe is brain fog.
Peri is not a diagnostic device and cannot tell you whether you’re officially in perimenopause or determine what treatment you need. Its research and validation are still developing. But as a tracking tool, it may help turn “something feels different” into information you and your clinician can actually discuss. The wearable is $449 but is currently offering a $100 coupon as of October 2026. The purchase is FSA- and HSA-eligible.
And sometimes, simply having proof that your body really is doing something different can feel validating.
If you’ve ever climbed into a freezing swimming pool and thought, Absolutely not, only to feel mostly fine five minutes later, you’ve experienced one of the quirks of your temperature-sensing system.
Your skin contains nerve endings called thermoreceptors that detect changes in temperature and send that information to your brain. But expose them to the same temperature long enough, and they start to adapt. It’s why a swimming pool stops feeling quite so freezing and why a steaming bath eventually stops feeling quite so hot.
Embr Labs is using that biology to take a different approach to hot flashes.
The Embr Wave looks a little like a smartwatch, but instead of counting your steps, it creates cooling or warming sensations on the inside of your wrist. At the push of a button, the device moves heat away from or toward the skin and delivers the sensation in waves, rather than keeping your wrist at one constant temperature.
(Photo/Courtesy Embr)
Why the wrist? It’s an area that can be particularly sensitive to thermal stimulation. And those changing temperature signals can influence how warm or cool you perceive your whole body to be.
Think of it less like wearing a tiny air conditioner and more like whispering “cool down” directly to your nervous system.
Importantly, Embr isn't actually lowering your core body temperature. The goal is to change your thermal comfort — basically, how hot or cold you feel. According to Embr, delivering the temperature in waves also helps prevent your thermoreceptors from adapting to one continuous sensation.
And unlike some of the emerging technologies in this article, Embr has been studied specifically in women experiencing menopause symptoms. In one randomized study of 39 perimenopausal and postmenopausal women with hot flashes and insomnia, women fell asleep faster, slept longer, and reported improvements in insomnia and sleep disturbance while using the device.
That's promising, but Embr Wave isn't an FDA-cleared treatment for hot flashes. It may be another tool for making them more tolerable rather than a substitute for evidence-based menopause treatment. Still, there is something appealing about discreetly pressing a button on your wrist when you feel the heat coming — especially when stripping off three layers of clothing in the middle of a work meeting isn't exactly an option.
The Embr Wave 2 costs $299, but if you want to try it without buying, Embr currently offers a rental option for $20 a month. It’s also FSA- and HSA-eligible.
Hot flashes are annoying enough during the day. At night, they can feel particularly rude.
You’re peacefully asleep, and suddenly you’re awake, drenched in sweat, kicking off the comforter, flipping the pillow to the cool side, and wondering how your bedroom transformed into a sauna while you were unconscious.
And once the hot flash passes, there’s another problem: Now you have to fall back asleep.
Amira Care takes an interesting approach. Instead of waiting for you to wake up and do something about night sweats, it’s designed to make your bed respond automatically.
The system, called Terra, has three main parts: a sensor bracelet worn while you sleep, a cooling pad that sits on the mattress, and a small cooling unit connected to the pad. According to Amira, sensors in the bracelet monitor changes in skin moisture and movement that may signal an approaching hot flash. When the system detects those signals, it automatically circulates chilled water through the mattress pad.
(Photo/Courtesy Amira)
In other words, instead of kicking one leg out from under the comforter at 2 a.m., Amira is trying to make the comforter meet you halfway.
There’s actually some science behind the idea of cooling the bed during menopause, although it’s important to note that the research wasn’t conducted on Amira itself. In a small pilot study, 15 perimenopausal and postmenopausal women with frequent hot flashes or night sweats slept on a water-cooled mattress pad for eight weeks. Researchers reported a 52% reduction in the frequency of these vasomotor symptoms, along with improvements in sleep quality and how much hot flashes interfered with daily life.
What makes Amira particularly interesting is the attempt to pair cooling with automatic detection. Rather than leaving a cooling mattress on all night, the idea is to recognize signals associated with a hot flash and turn on the cooling when you need it. Amira says you can also activate the system manually if you want to cool the bed yourself.
Amira is a consumer wellness product, not an FDA-cleared treatment for hot flashes. So, for now, view the automatic detection claims as company-reported technology rather than established clinical evidence. The system can run on the pricier side at a retail price of $699, but the company does offer discounts occasionally. The purchase is FSA- and HSA-eligible and has a 30-day money back guarantee.
“I’m fine.”
Two words that can mean approximately 4,000 different things depending on how you say them.
Say them brightly and quickly, and you might actually be fine. Say them slowly, quietly and after a very long pause and … well, your best friend probably knows better.
It turns out researchers are interested in that difference too. Our voices contain information beyond the words we speak. Things like pitch, rhythm, speed, pauses and other acoustic features can change alongside our emotional and cognitive states. Researchers are studying these so-called voice biomarkers as potential ways to monitor conditions ranging from depression to changes in memory and thinking. The science is promising, but still developing. Voice analysis isn't ready to replace a mental health evaluation or an assessment of changes in memory and thinking. But Prickly Pear is bringing that idea into women’s health.
The app, which requires iOs 18.0 or later to operate, is designed as a voice-first AI health companion for women navigating hormonal changes. Instead of tapping your symptoms into a traditional tracker, you talk. During short voice check-ins, you describe how you're feeling, and according to the company, its AI analyzes both what you say and how you say it, including things like tone and pace. The app can combine those check-ins with wearable and health data to look for patterns in mood, habits and how you're feeling over time.
(Photo/Courtesy Prickly Pear)
Your journal may know what you said. Prickly Pear wants to know how you sounded when you said it.
That’s particularly interesting during perimenopause because the symptoms aren't confined to the ovaries. Women commonly report changes in mood, sleep, memory and concentration during the menopause transition. And anyone who has walked purposefully into a room only to stand there wondering Why am I here? can understand why “brain fog” has become such a familiar part of the menopause vocabulary.
Legitimate science has set a precedent for studying the voice as a health signal. A 2025 systematic review found that speech and voice features showed potential as digital biomarkers for depression, but the researchers also noted substantial differences among studies and methodological limitations that need to be addressed before voice biomarkers are widely used clinically.
Prickly Pear is not an FDA-cleared diagnostic tool, and it can't tell you that brain fog means you have cognitive impairment, depression or another neurological condition. For now, I’d think of it more like a very observant digital journal: a tool that may help you notice patterns in how you're feeling and give you something more concrete to discuss with your clinician. A subscription is free, but there are tiered levels ranging from $9.99 to $79.99 to unlock additional features. You can not use your FSA or HSA money for Prickly Pear.
Just like most things in life, perimenopause requires a lot of emotional labor from women. For a long time, managing menopause symptoms has required women to do a lot of the work themselves: remember what happened, track when it happened, figure out what might have triggered it, and find ways to cope when symptoms strike.
What excites me about this new generation of menopause technology is that some of that work may finally be shifting to the technology.
A wearable can pay attention while you go about your day. A wristband can help you cool down without leaving the room. A bed can respond while you’re sleeping. Even your voice could become another way to understand how you’re feeling over time.
We’re still early, and these technologies will get better as researchers learn more about both menopause and the signals our bodies produce. But that’s also what makes this moment exciting.
Menopause has always been something our bodies know how to do. Now, technology is finally learning how to listen.
The information about products and/or services in this column does not constitute any form of endorsement or recommendation by HealthyWomen. Links are provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only. This column may occasionally cover companies in which Brittany Barreto is an investor.
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