Booing fans and disgruntled pundits have marked the 2026 World Cup, where for the first time mandatory hydration breaks occur twice during every match. Critics say the pauses are little more than an opportunity for broadcasters to show more ads, breaking the natural flow of games in air-conditioned stadiums.
But the controversy reflects a broader trend. “Hydration is a key issue,” says Andreas Flouris at the University of Thessaly in Greece. “We definitely see it, from a scientific point of view, gaining more and more attention.” Climate change is intensifying heatwaves, and public health campaigns are urging people to drink more fluids.
“World Cup hydration breaks spark controversy as sweat-tracking gadgets flood the market.”
How big is the problem? A 2023 study suggested one in four UK adults aged 65 or older were dehydrated due to insufficient fluid intake. A 2018 study by Flouris and colleagues assessed 139 workers across Europe and found 70% were dehydrated to a level that could impair their thinking and movement control.
Into this gap have flooded hydration-focused gadgets, from sweat monitors to toilet bowl urine-analysers. “Sweat has been the next chapter,” says Roozbeh Ghaffari, co-founder and chief executive of Epicore Biosystems, a US-based company making sweat-analysing devices. Its products include single-use sticky patches and sleeve-like wearables that track sweat flow rate, sodium content and skin temperature. A new armband and app combo evaluates “hydration readiness” based on “real-time sweat data”.
“With this new generation of our wearables, we could figure out what type of risk profile you have based on your sweat score,” Ghaffari adds. Some of the company's devices vibrate gently when they calculate it is time to take a swig of fluid. The firm says its devices are used by athletes as well as workers on building sites, at oil and gas facilities, and on the ground at airports where exposure to high temperatures is common.
But whether these gadgets truly solve the dehydration problem — or simply add another layer of data to an already information-saturated world — remains an open question.