Scanadu Scout medical tricorder is ‘a doctor in the palm of your hands’

“We’re in a tsunami of personalization. With a cellphone, you can find anything, anywhere. But you can’t find out is information about your own body,” say the creators of the Star Trek inspired, US$199 Scanadu Scout, the world’s first working medical tricorder. It’s also one of the best performing Indiegogo projects of all time, earning a cool US$1 041 452 (so far) of its startup goal. Considering that Scandadu was asking for US$100 000 only, the million dollar bonus proves that either Scanadu Scout works, or we really believe that it will. This is technology you need to know about, so read on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKCeoiRhVuI

Scouting ahead

Hold the Scout to your forehead for ten seconds and it spits out your heart rate and ECG, blood pressure, temperature, repository rate and oxygen levels. It analyses all these readings and uploads them to the bundled iOS or Android app. It’s medical grade data that’s easy to understand and can be shared with your physician. We can thank the same people who placed a man on the moon, NASA, for this technology.

Medical tricorders kind of existed before Scanadu Scout, like digital thermometers and glucose-measuring meters designed for diabetics. Scanadu Scout is built on the same tech that powers the Mars Rover Curiosity uses for sample analysis on Mars. If it’s good enough for Mars, then it’s good enough for measuring your sick kids temperature.

Ready for action

As mentioned above, Scanadu Scout is Android, iOS and human compatible and connects via Bluetooth 4.0. It’s charged with microUSB and if used “a few times a day” will reportedly last over a week. Scanadu also recommends wiping it down after use.

Scanadu’s still a prototype and the finished version may be more compact then the version we see in the video and stills. Plus, Scout still needs FDA approval if it wants to be a medically-sound device. Right now, the Scanadu Scout will be sold to us (“researchers”) as an exploratory tool. Scout is said to pose no risk, but Scandau needs our collected data to present its case for FDA approval. Or as Scanadu puts it “we need to collect data that will be submitted in a marketing application to the regulatory authorities.” This information, submitted by you, is on an opt-in basis only.

For anyone that supports the Scout on Indiegogo, there’s a kind of medical treat in store for them. Scanadu has created a global health map that will chart the scans of every Scout user who contributed to this groundbreaking campaign. It’s all anonymous, and can be viewed here.

Scanadu Scout has broken through it’s initial funding stage and is said to ship March 2014 for US$199. It’s a Star Trek tricorder, it’s real and we want one.