The Temple device is currently the talk of the town. The pre-orders officially started on November 1, and the Temple website states that the device will be delivered within three months. Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato and Temple, has been actively sharing details about the wearable on X. While many people are excited about it, several health experts are expressing doubts and requesting "clinical evidence" to support its claims. However, Goyal has clarified that "Temple is a fitness tracker, and wellness device. We are not a medical device. If at some point, we clinically validate any of our metrics, we will let you know."
In a recent post on X, Goyal wrote an open letter to Indian doctors who are raising concerns about the accuracy, safety, and uses of the device.
"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. We have 14-day, no-questions-asked returns (which even Apple doesn't offer in India). If the product doesn't work, it fails out of the gate and the company dies before recovering a tenth of its R&D," he wrote.
Regarding clinical evidence, Goyal stated, "Most wearable companies start with internal studies. Whoop shipped its band in 2015, and the first published validation followed a few years later. We hold ourselves to a higher standard; pre-prints are a step prior to peer-reviewed publications, and they are coming up."
In response, hepatologist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as The LiverDoc, remarked that "there is no science."
"His own Science Lead (Avi Roy) has accepted that the fact that their device is not yet proven to measure brain flow or "entropy" as they claim on their website and additionally, has directly addressed concerns of poor methodology as well as statistical misrepresentation, without responding to clear evidence of data falsification in their pre-print papers. Other wearables like Whoop (which he cited) measured and validated exactly what the wearable can measure within limits of human anatomy and physiology," the LiverDoc wrote.
Another Indian doctor, Dr Zubin Sharma, a gastroenterologist, wrote: "Thank you @deepigoyal for saying Temple is shipping with no research at clinical outcomes/ peer reviewed level."
Amid all the discussions about this latest wearable, let's take a closer look at what Deepinder Goyal's Temple claims to do:
The Temple device is a pill-shaped wearable developed by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal. Worn on the side of the head using a disposable medical-grade adhesive grip, the gadget claims to continuously monitor cerebral blood flow (blood flow inside the brain) and evaluate biological strain. Priced at Rs 85,000, the device uses light-based optical sensors to track metrics rather than relying on standard wrist-based tracking.
The device is available in six colours: True Gold, Rose Gold, Black Mirror, Real Jade, Deep Blue and Purple Funk.
READ | Temple Is The Most Accurate Heart Rate Detector, Claims Deepinder Goyal; Here's How It Works
Temple employs light-based sensing technology to track cerebral blood flow and oxygenation in real time, marketed as BrainFlow. In one of the posts on X, Goyal claimed that "Temple is the most accurate HR (heart rate) tracker compared to all flagship wearables, even in Zone 4 & 5."
The device calculates a biological entropy score ranging from 1 to 250. This metric claims to indicate the amount of physiological strain your body is under due to factors like stress, poor sleep, and caffeine intake.
The device has faced significant pushback from the medical community. Medical experts note that the superficial temporal artery where the device sits is entirely outside the skull. Readings taken from this area are heavily influenced by the scalp, skin, and muscle tissue, making it highly questionable whether it can accurately measure true blood flow inside the brain.
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The Temple device is marketed strictly for general wellness and research. It is not approved by medical regulatory bodies.
Critics point out that the company's claims rely on internal studies with very small sample sizes rather than peer-reviewed, third-party independent trials. It cannot be used to diagnose, prevent, or evaluate any actual neurological or health conditions.
