Scientists Built a Fart-Tracking Wearable. It’s a Hit.

How smart is your underwear? No, that isn’t a rhetorical question. A group of scientists at the University of Maryland have developed “Smart Underwear” — yes, the capitalization is very much intentional — as part of a landmark effort to, well, track the nation’s farts.

The wearable device, which actually attaches to a user’s own underwear, is being used to track data for the Human Flatus Atlas study; a recent Wall Street Journal article dubbed it the “Fitbit for farts.” (“Fartbit” was right there!)

How did we get here? This fart-tracking effort is the brainchild of Brantley Hall, who, in addition to his work as an assistant professor, is also one of the authors of a paper published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics in late 2025 that explained more about the need to better understand flatulence. The paper’s authors noted that, at present, “no tools exist for continuous, non-invasive monitoring of hydrogen in flatus to track changes in gut microbial metabolism.”

That is what led to the creation of Smart Underwear. It’s described on the website as “a wearable device that is smaller than a quarter, rechargeable, snaps onto any underwear material and sends data via Bluetooth to a phone app.” According to what Hall and his colleagues found, the device was able to monitor the farts of study participants, as well as “[tracking] diet-induced changes in microbial metabolism.”

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Hall also has another worthy goal with this venture: determining precisely what the average amount of flatulence is for our species. Does an internet-connected fart monitor sound strange? Maybe, but an awareness of one’s gut health is important, and this is one way to get a sense of it.

Plus, there’s been no shortage of interest. According to Hall’s team, “enrollment in the Human Flatus Atlas is currently paused” due to “overwhelming demand.”

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…