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Doctors Call $900 Temple Brain Tracker ‘a Scam’Health
A tiny Rs85,000 wearable claiming to track blood flow to the brain has set off a fierce row between its billionaire maker and doctors who question the science.
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A tiny wearable device that claims to track blood flow to the brain has set off a fierce public row in India, with doctors challenging the science behind the $900 gadget and its billionaire maker hitting back. The device, called Temple, is less than an inch wide, weighs under two grams and sticks to the side of the head near the temple. It sells in India for 85,000 rupees, about $907, and comes in six colours.
Temple was developed by Deepinder Goyal, the co-founder of food delivery company Zomato, and has been showcased by some of India’s best-known sports stars, including cricket captain Shubman Gill and Olympic badminton medallist P.V. Sindhu. Its promotional material says the device’s BrainFlow feature shows how well the brain is being supplied with blood in real time, while its Entropy feature can detect how hard the body works to shed heat. It is also said to measure thermal, immune, digestive, cognitive and emotional readings.
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Doctors question the claims
Several well-known doctors have said the claims go far beyond what the device can actually measure. Hepatologist Cyriac Philips, known online as TheLiverDoc, has been among the most outspoken critics, writing on X that the “Temple device is a scam. There is no doubt about it.” Paediatrician and nephrologist Sanjeev Bagai has also criticised the device on prime-time television, while other doctors have called for medical regulators to examine it.
The central objection is about anatomy. Dr Jason Philip, writing on X, argued that measuring blood flow to the brain is not easy, and that optical signals picked up over the temple skin would mostly reflect the superficial temporal artery, which supplies the face and scalp rather than the brain. The critics say the device’s headline claims are not backed by peer-reviewed research, and that its two signature measures, BrainFlow and Entropy, have no standard clinical definition.
Goyal has rejected the criticism. He says he has put $20 million of his own money into developing Temple, part of about $30 million spent on the project in total, and that preprints of the company’s research are expected, with independent studies to follow once the device reaches users. “If Temple were a scam, and any of what we said weren’t true, people would know it in just a few days of using Temple,” he wrote on X, adding that buyers get 14-day, no-questions-asked returns. The company describes Temple as a wellness device and says more research is coming.
The row has grown well beyond a social media argument. Temple raised $54 million in February at a valuation of about $190 million, and its advisory board includes professors from the University of Ottawa and Harvard. India’s health ministry has not responded to questions about the device, and the government has so far not reacted to the public debate. For now, the argument comes down to a simple question that only independent testing can settle: can a patch stuck to the temple really tell you anything about the brain inside?
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