Hepatologist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as ‘The Liver Doc’ on X, lambasted Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal on Thursday as the latter defended his Temple fitness device worth ₹85,000. The Liver Doc called Goyal’s Temple a “scam” soon after the Zomato boss addressed the “rage” and concerns raised by the medical community against the wearable device.
Temple is a high-tech wearable health device developed by Zomato and Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal. It is a pill-shaped sensor designed to stick on the side of the head near the temple.
According to its website, Temple is a “wearable device for continuous cerebral blood flow monitoring, positioned around brain hemodynamics, performance, and broader brain health applications.”
On October 21, 2026, founder Deepinder Goyal announced that pre-orders for Temple Batch 01 will open on November 1, 2026.
How does it work? The information on the website explained that ‘entropy’ measures how hard your body is working to shed heat, read from your temple.
At rest, it shows the load your body is carrying across many systems: thermal, immune, digestive, cognitive, emotional, pharmacological, postural, reproductive, and recovery. Healthier bodies maintain low Entropy at rest, and we call that your Resting Entropy.
During activity, heat dissipation becomes mostly aerobic. The highest Entropy you sustain near your max heart rate, is your Entropy Max.
Your Resting Entropy and your Entropy Max combine into Span: the one number that shows you how well your body is doing across a wide range of systems.
Criticism: While many questioned the science behind the device, Goyal clarified on Thursday that Temple is a fitness/wellness tracker and not a medical device that requires clinical validation. “We are a fitness/wellness wearable – well outside the purview of doctors,” Goyal said.
Philips, or the ‘The Liver Doc’, questioned Temple’s scientific claims, particularly its ability to measure brain blood flow and ‘entropy’, and accused the company of misleading users through unproven claims and questionable research methodology.
Reacting to Goyal’s clarification on X, The Liver Doc said, “As expected, he has written a word salad. This man has provided no real evidence or proof that his device, which he is selling for INR 85,000/- can measure and interpret brain flow from a superficial artery…”
He claimed Goyal’s 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 respond to clear evidence of data falsification in their pre-print papers.”
The Liver Doc said, “Other wearables like Whoop (which he cited) measured and validated exactly what the wearable can measure within limits of human anatomy and physiology.”
“Temple is overdoing it and defrauding its potential customers,” he added.
The Liver Doc claimed, “The device can only measure blood flow and flushing to the face in humans and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the brain as they claim. This is the issue, not what can happen in the future. The device itself fails its primary objective.”
He hit out at Goyal, saying, “There is no our science and your science. But there is bad science, fringe science and science fraud and Team Temple, embraced all of these.”
“Temple device is a scam. There is no doubt about it. The question is however, how long can this man and his team keep defrauding people under the garb of “we are spending millions for you” or “we are trying our best” or “we are taking the risk” kind of responses?.,” The Liver Doc said.
Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal posted a message on X for “concerned Indian doctors”, defending his Temple device in seven points. He said, “I see your rage against Temple on X. I have a few points to make.” Here’s what he wrote on X:
1. “First and foremost, a business lesson: 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.”
2. “We have already spent $30m building Temple, $20m out of which is my own money. Selling a few thousand devices recovers a small fraction of this investment. A scam that pays nothing is not a scam anyone would run.”
3. “I left the Eternal CEO role to chase purpose with Temple. This is not about money. I have enough of it to last for generations. My incentives are fully aligned with getting the science right. I am not staking a reputation earned over 20 years on making a quick buck.
4. “Our employees bought into our round a few months ago. The round we’re raising now is mostly our customers. Scams don’t build that cap table.”
5. “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.”
6. “At some point you have to stick your neck out and say: we believe in our science, and the product is now valuable enough for people to pay for and use. We believe we are there. More validation continues in public.”
7. “We are confident that we are building something that the world is going to be positively astonished with. We stand by our science and our methods. Each of our claims is easily verifiable by individuals and institutions alike, and you will see a lot of independent studies come up on their own when the device becomes available to use.”
Goyal concluded by saying that the most groundbreaking features in Temple are not even public yet. “And some of them, thankfully, have nothing to do with doctors 🤭,” he added.
In another post, he responded to those seeking “clinical evidence”, saying, “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.”
Goyal actively responded to criticism over the device on X. Commenting on one such post, he said, “Temple is not a medical device. So no clinical outcomes need to be validated. We are a fitness/wellness wearable – well outside the purview of doctors.
“Peer reviews are a process; it will happen inevitably and soon. Yes, we are also building Blinkit Ambulances with that money,” he added.
