Skip to content
Surprising Science —

Coming Soon: A Real Medical Tricorder

Medical tech startup Scanadu has met its goal of having a prototype device ready by the end of this year. It works by reading vital signs from the user’s temple.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

What’s the Latest Development?

California-based Scanadu announced this week that it will have a prototype of its SCOUT handheld medical tricorder ready by the end of this year. When held to a person’s temple for 10 seconds, the device reads vital signs, such as heart rate and temperature, and feeds the results into a free smartphone app, which records all readings for future reference. Scanadu designers are working on a system that will eventually let users send SCOUT data to their doctors, but for now it’s viewed as a way to keep better track of one’s health. The 10-second read delivers results with 99 percent accuracy. 

What’s the Big Idea?

The concept of a tricorder, or handheld data scanner, originated on Star Trek in the 1960s. Today, Scanadu’s is one of several teams competing for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, which offers an award of $10 million for the device that can best identify key health data and diagnose a set of 15 diseases. Scanadu co-founder Walter de Brouwer, who first prototyped a much larger version of a tricorder in the 1990s, says, “[I]n this time of personalized readings we should have personalized parameters….This is the smart thermometer which incorporates a complete emergency room.” Expect to see SCOUT on the market by the end of 2013.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
Up Next