Peri, the First Perimenopause Wearable, Makes TIME's Best Inventions of 2026

What TIME's list covers

To compile this year's list, TIME solicited nominations from its editors and correspondents around the world, and through an online application process. The magazine paid special attention to growing fields such as health care and AI. Each contender was then evaluated on originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact. The full list is available at ti.me/best-inventions.

Peri was announced as a selection on Oct. 15, 2026, from Dublin. The company says the recognition covers the products, software, and services shaping our world.

How the Peri device works

According to the company, perimenopause affects virtually every woman, yet there are no standardized biomarkers for it and no objective way to measure how symptoms change over time. Peri is meant to fill that gap with an objective picture of what is happening in the body.

The device is a small, lightweight sensor worn directly under the breast and designed for continuous wear through exercise, sleep, and showering. Peri argues that placement is fundamental: hot flashes and night sweats originate in the upper body, and the signals used to detect them dissipate toward the limbs. In the company's view, a ring or wrist-based device therefore cannot capture them accurately.

Behind the hardware sits an AI platform that Peri says took five years to build from the ground up. Every algorithm was developed in-house and trained exclusively on continuous data from 204 women going through perimenopause during human trials. The platform analyzes how symptoms, movement, sleep, medications, lifestyle factors, and menstrual cycles interact. A companion app delivers personalized insights on a weekly, monthly, and cyclical basis.

Bringing data into the doctor's office

Peri cites a gap in care: of the 60% of women who seek clinical help for perimenopause, 70% leave without answers. The company says a woman using Peri no longer has to describe her symptoms from memory at a 15-minute appointment. She can instead show her doctor how hot flashes, night sweats, sleep, cycle and other symptoms have behaved over weeks and months.

Clinicians could then tailor treatment to what the patient is actually experiencing, and see whether a treatment such as hormone therapy is working, at what dose, and how that changes over time. Peri also says that how symptoms present during perimenopause is associated with later cardiovascular health, bone density, and cognitive function, so understanding them now can shape a woman's health for decades.

The company says it is already working with universities researching the link between midlife and long-term health, and on broader scientific collaborations with a number of clinics and women's health companies.

Price and what it means for users

Peri's wearable costs $349 for menopause month, with no subscription or recurring fees, and is FSA and HSA eligible. The company describes itself as ISO certified and GDPR compliant, and says it applies HIPAA-aligned safeguards. It was founded by scientists Heidi Davis and Dr. Donal O'Gorman.

"Being named to TIME's Best Inventions is a meaningful moment for our team and for the hundreds of women who helped us build Peri," said Heidi Davis, co-founder and CEO of Peri. She added: "We built Peri to give women real answers about their own bodies, and to build a dataset that can inform how healthcare serves women more broadly."

For women in perimenopause, the pitch is a way to turn symptoms into objective, longitudinal records that can support conversations with clinicians. The claims about accuracy, placement and outcomes come from the company, and the source does not include independent clinical results.