Scanadu Scout: A Medical Tricorder Dr. McCoy Would Want

Scanadu is building products that enable users to monitor their health at any time, any place. The company is focused on wireless devices that sync to a smart phone app to show users health data, which can lead to informed health triage.

The Scanadu Scout, widely proclaimed as a “medical grade Tricorder” can measure heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, blood pressure, ECG, emotional stress and more. How does it work? Place the Scout on your forehead for 10 seconds and your stats will be instantly displayed on your phone app. The makers of the Scout want it to be a FDA recognized medical device. They are offering users an exploratory version of the device and asking them to opt-in to initial clinical studies. Scanadu is a participant in the Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize and I am certainly excited to see what other healthcare forward technologies will be created from the competition.

Instabeat: A Body Monitor for Swimmers

Instabeat is a body monitor specifically made for swimmers. The device clips onto your swimming goggles (fits all goggle frames) and has an optical sensor that can read your heart rate. Additionally, the device measures number of laps, flip turns and breathing levels during swimming. Lights on the wearable project colors onto your lenses in real-time to notify how close you are to reaching preset fat burning, fitness and performance goals. Instabeat then syncs with your personal dashboard which tracks your swimming results and progress over time. Runners and cyclists have had wearable devices for a while now and finally swimmers will too!

Moves App: Effortless Movement Tracking with the iPhone

Wearables can be expensive, extraneous to carry and incapable of recognizing specific activities. Moves is trying to solve these issues with an app that creates a ‘story’ of your day using your movements. Moves is developed and run by ProtoGeo Oy, a global team of eight.

I took the app for a spin and was pleasantly surprised that it was able to accurately determine when I walked to the local grocery store, when I drove home from work and when I went for a quick jog (and for how long / how slowly). The app has two downsides – my phone has to be with me at all times and the app has to continuously run in the background, using modest battery. However, I love the story timeline of my movements (the design is simple yet fluid) and I can’t wait to use the app during vacations and trips. I measured my run with other fitness trackers and Moves turned out to be reasonably precise. The company noted on their website that they will be improving battery consumption levels and further refining the app, which I certainly look forward to.