Handheld Health Device Can Measure Your Vitals From Your Forehead

By Monica Gleberman
Contributing Writer

Health Insurance has been a constant debate worldwide with Americans discussing the pros and cons of insurance. Although Obamacare is set to kick in January of 2014, many will still find insurance prices too high. However, a new handheld device called, Meet Scout, might be able to save you a trip to the emergency room if you are feeling sick.

Meet Scout can measure all of your vital signs, your body’s temperature and heart rate, level of stress, oximetry, and ECG all from your forehead. Seems to good to be true? Well it’s not. It’s as simple as it sounds. You take the handheld device and hold it to your forehead for 10 seconds. In that time, the device will scan your body and record all of its readings into an application that you can install on your smartphone.

This allows you to see if any of your vitals are elevated for any reason, as well as track your health stats over time. The application will analyze multiple readings to see if there is an ongoing physical problem that should be addressed, such as a high heart rate.

Scanadu CEO and founder, Walter de Brouwer came up with the idea after spending time in the ICU when his son got into an accident. Luckily his son ended up being returning back to his normal, but Brouwer still wanted being able to track his son’s stats after he left the hospital. “We need an instrument or tool in that battle for the ownership of the data that comes out of our body,” said Brouwer.

After building the device using Micrium technology, Brouwer was able to accomplish his goals of bringing hospital stats into the household. To help get his product kick-off, Brouwer is using IndieGoGo as a way of raising money. The first 1000 backers will be able to pick up their own Meet Scout at the reduced price of $149 before its on the market. The price will go up to $199.

Although this product has not yet been fully funded, Brouwer has already begun working on his next invention, saliva and urine tests. These will check for the flu, strep throat and measure your glucose, protein, nitrates levels and even tell women if they are pregnant.

Scanadu said he plans on beginning clinical trials on the urinalysis and saliva tests over the next few months.