Imagine if your watch wasn’t mounted on your wrist, but was instead integrated into a sort of temporary tattoo on the back of your hand? Such an idea is now one step closer to reality, thanks to new research into alternating-current electroluminescent (ACEL) display technology.

While normally such displays require well over 100VAC to produce sufficient brightness, scientists have worked to get this number down into the 10-35V range, allowing them to be used in much closer proximity to human skin. 

To demonstrate this technology, the team constructed a 4-digit 7-segment display that can be applied to one’s hand, using an Arduino Mega and driver circuitry to turn it into a digital timepiece.

More information can be found in the researchers’ paper published in ACS Materials Letters.