Hormone-tracking company Mira has launched Cortisol Pattern Wands, expanding its at-home hormone monitor beyond fertility and cycle tracking into stress. The tests directly measure free cortisol in urine, with 20 disposable wands priced at $55 and 30 at $70. Pre-orders are open now, with the first products shipping from November 25.

Turning cortisol into a personal stress pattern

The cortisol wands work with the existing Mira Monitor, an at-home reader originally built around women’s hormone tracking. Mira’s system uses disposable urine test wands to measure hormones including LH, E3G, PdG, and FSH. The measures help users track fertility, ovulation, and cycle patterns over time. Cortisol moves the testing format beyond reproductive health.

Users dip a Cortisol Pattern Wand into urine, insert it into the reader, and receive a result in the Mira app around 15 minutes later. Mira recommends around seven initial tests to establish a personal cortisol baseline, followed by two to three tests per week. Morning and evening testing can also show how cortisol levels change through the day.

Timing is key, as cortisol follows a strong daily rhythm. Levels are generally highest around waking and trend lower toward the evening. Mira compares results with the user’s own baseline instead of only plotting them against a population range.

Beyond the direct hormone measurement, Mira is beta-launching Stress Signal. Stress Signal combines cortisol readings with questionnaire data covering sleep, mood, and self-reported stress to create a daily wellness score. Mira explicitly positions both the score and the general readings as a wellness product, not the basis for medical diagnosis.

Moving towards direct stress measurement

Most consumer wearables estimate stress from signals such as heart rate, HRV, sleep, and temperature. At-home cortisol kits can measure the hormone directly, but commonly require samples to be sent to a laboratory. Mira brings repeated biochemical testing into a reader existing users already have at home.

The launch fits within a wider push toward more continuous hormone monitoring. A class of emerging wearables is trying to measure cortisol and other hormones consistently, in similar fashion to continuous glucose monitors. 

Mira is still a step removed from that goal, still relying on isolated, manual testing. But repeated morning and evening testing, offered within an already used platform, already reveals more about changing hormone rhythms than single lab-analyzed samples.