[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cE9Xc5kqmY&HD=1]
Scanadu cofounder Sam De Brouwer demonstrates the Scout and Scanaflo
At CES this week I met with a very interesting company called Scanadu which makes two interesting healthcare products that connect with the iPhone…
The Scanadu Scout (pictured, right) is a little electronic device designed by Yves Béhar that you touch to your forehead for a few seconds. Almost instantly, physiological parameters, including temperature, heart rate, blood oxygenation, respiratory rate, ECG, and diastolic/systolic blood pressure are sent to an app on your iPhone which logs these measurements and alerts users to anomalies and deviations which may be cause for heath concerns.
The Scout closed a $1.6M Indigogo funding round in 2013 and is still trying to push the product through the FDA as it tries to get deliveries to customers.
Perhaps more interesting however, Scnadu introduced its new “Scanaflo” device at CES 2015 which is a home urinalysis apparatus that uses your iPhone’s camera to image a set of colors strips.
The strips are all dipped in the patient’s urine and change color based on the levels of important chemicals found within. The various colors indicate the levels of glucose, protein, leukocytes, nitrites, blood, bilirubin, urobilinogen, microalbumin, creatinine, ketone, specific gravity, and pH in urine. Almost instantly after taking the picture, the app has a good idea of the chemical composition of the urine.
Again, the app logs your levels to compare it against a history and alerts to anomalies and potentially harmful deviations.
Interestingly, De Brouwer indicated that the Scanaflo could easily be upgraded to be a drug/urine testing apparatus which would open up a huge can of worms but also enable parents of troubled teens to know that their children were behaving. Obviously there would be privacy concerns.
Scanadu is also trying to push the Scanaflo through the FDA and hopes to have it in customer hands later this year.
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Scanadu Scout sounds really cool but Im not sure how many people need to test their pee often enough that they need a personal device to do it.
people with chronic kidney, liver, urinary tract, etc illnesses would definitely find interest in this
Maybe in America, without insurance. However, in Canada with free Healthcare there is no benefit to doing this at home.
Also UTI’s won’t show up on this. No microorganism based illnesses will. FYI I work in the Medical Laboratory at hospital in Canada.
i see this Drug testing device leading to a lot of people losing their jobs. just because one day they pissed off their boss and they needed a reason to fire them so they have this on their desk and do a random drug test. aside from how great they are at their job this would be the reason they fire them. i for one would not want this to come to fruition.
I think the Scout itself is a wonderful idea, just a little late to the party in view of all the competition including the Apple Watch.
It should have been Electrocardiograph in the title as Electrocardiograph is the machine which takes the Electrocardiogram.
When I read this article I thought it sounded so amazing. But after seeing the video I can conclude that It does NOT create an ECG. An ECG is a graphic representation of the hearts electrical activity. ECG is used to diagnose AV-Blocks, acute myocardial infarcts, pericarditis, endocarditis and many, many other heart diseases. Try to Google ECG.
Things are now starting to get really interesting.
you can’t get an ecg tracing from your forehead
Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you cannot get blood pressure either.
This is a great device which would help everyone. Its really very useful.
As someone trained to perform ECG/EKGs I can tell you that this machine does not provide an ECG tracing. Even if it did individuals are not capable of properly interpreting the results. However, it appeared to give multiple other readings which really are not useful to an individual. It’s more important to listen to symptoms you are experiencing than reading an app. This doesn’t provide proper instruction for use either. For blood pressure you should be sitting for 3 to 5 minutes, still and quiet. You’ll need to remain still and quiet during testing too.
One thing that I rarely see reported in the news is that not many Doctor’s actually want or even need all or any of this information. Is the time, money and energy involved in taking your Sp02 twice a day really worth it, if you’re going to get nothing but perfectly fine results for the rest of your life. Then is it worth the panic it causes in the average joe when he sees his 99 or 100 turn into a 97 one time, resulting in him scheduling an unnecessary appointment?
Seeing your ECG with the Hexoskin is more elegant :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF-MrfKVJyo