DUBLIN – Peri, the women's health company behind the first wearable device and large-scale dataset dedicated to perimenopause, has been named to TIME's Best Inventions of 2026, which recognizes the products, software, and services shaping our world.
To compile this year's list, featuring 300 innovations, TIME solicited nominations from its editors and correspondents around the world, and through an online application process, paying special attention to growing fields such as health care and AI. TIME then evaluated each contender on key factors including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.
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 gives women an objective picture of what is happening in their bodies, insights to manage their symptoms and care, and the data they need to advocate for themselves.
The device is a small, lightweight sensor worn directly under the breast and designed for continuous wear through exercise, sleep, and showering. Placement is fundamental. Hot flashes and night sweats originate in the upper body, and the signals used to detect them dissipate toward the limbs, so a ring or wrist-based device cannot capture them accurately.
Peri spent five years building its AI platform and database 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, and the companion app delivers personalized insights on a weekly, monthly, and cyclical basis.
Of the 60% of women who seek clinical help for perimenopause, 70% leave without answers. With Peri, a woman no longer has to describe her symptoms from memory at a 15-minute appointment. She can show her doctor how her hot flashes, night sweats, sleep, cycle and other symptoms have behaved over weeks and months. Her clinician can then tailor treatment to what she is actually experiencing, and see whether a treatment like hormone therapy is working, at what dose, and how that changes over time.
How symptoms present during perimenopause is also associated with later cardiovascular health, bone density, and cognitive function, so understanding them now can shape a woman's health for decades. Peri is already working with universities researching the link between midlife and long-term health, as well as on broader scientific collaborations with a number of clinics and women's health companies.
"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. "For too long, women have gone through perimenopause flying blind, and it doesn't have to be that way. 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."
Peri's wearable costs $349 for menopause month, with no subscription or recurring fees, and is FSA and HSA eligible.
The full list is available at ti.me/best-inventions.
