A wearable system that models the latent state governing wakefulness stability — what the orexin system does functionally — by fusing its observable downstream effects across pupillometry, autonomic, thermal, respiratory, and chemical channels from three coordinated body-worn devices.
One prediction, updated every 30 seconds: the probability of wakefulness collapse within the next 20 minutes — derived from the divergence across physiological subsystems. When all systems agree, the probability is low. When they diverge, it rises. Not a wellness score. A testable prediction with defined sensitivity, specificity, and validation endpoints.
Calibrated per individual over 2–3 weeks of passive data collection. The system learns your specific divergence pattern before crashes — not population averages. Validated against PVT reaction time, self-labeled events, and (in clinical settings) MSLT and PSG.
Orexin (hypocretin) governs wakefulness stability — the brain's resistance to unwanted state transitions, attention collapse, and microsleep. When orexin fails, the boundary between wake and sleep becomes unstable. This is narcolepsy, but subtler dysregulation affects idiopathic hypersomnia, shift work, circadian disruption, and a growing list of neuropsychiatric conditions.
Direct orexin measurement requires a lumbar puncture — invasive, single-snapshot, confined to clinical settings. Like measuring annual income to understand daily cash flow. There is no continuous tool for wakefulness stability in free-living conditions, which limits research, blocks longitudinal studies, and leaves the rapidly expanding pipeline of orexin-targeting therapeutics without a real-time endpoint.
The orexin system doesn't just regulate wakefulness — it synchronizes the subsystems that maintain it. Pupils, heart rhythm, skin conductance, temperature regulation, and breathing patterns all march in lockstep when orexin is active. When it fails, they decouple. The decoupling is the signal.
We don't look for any single system going "bad." We look for systems disagreeing with each other:
Divergence detection — each sensing modality produces its own estimate of the body's readiness state. When all estimates agree (pupils stable, heart balanced, temperature regulated, EDA steady), the system is coherent and wakefulness is secure. When estimates diverge (pupils oscillating while heart rate is calm, temperature dumping while EDA flatlines), the physiological subsystems have lost their common coordinator. That divergence — not any single metric — is the precursor to collapse.
Seven orthogonal sensing modalities from three coordinated wearable devices, time-synchronized to within 10 milliseconds, each contributing a probabilistic estimate to multiple latent states. The variance across those estimates becomes a single prediction: the probability of wakefulness collapse within the next 20 minutes.
"Pupillometry is a reliable readout of orexin neuron activity."
Grujic et al. — Control and coding of pupil size by hypothalamic orexin neurons. Nature Neuroscience, 2023.
Most wearable systems average their signals. We measure the disagreement between them. That's much harder to replicate — and much closer to what the orexin system actually does.
Each device contributes a distinct subset of the autonomic signature. The system degrades gracefully — partial sensor availability still produces a confidence-weighted index.
This system does not measure orexin molecules. No wearable can. It detects impending failures in wakefulness by measuring divergence across physiological subsystems that are normally synchronized by the orexin system. The distinction matters: we are not estimating a peptide concentration. We are detecting when the body's subsystems stop agreeing with each other — which is what happens when their common coordinator fails.
It is a research instrument and personal data logger. It is not an FDA-cleared medical device. It is not a diagnostic tool for narcolepsy or any other condition. It should never be used for safety-critical decisions.