I recently watched a segment on Bloomberg about Scanadu Scout, a little white scanner that you place on your forehead (makes me think of the Vicks forehead thermometer I use for my kids) to obtain a bunch of vital signs, such as blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and SpO2 (oxygen saturation). Sounds really neat and even kind of essential for monitoring one’s health. But does it do enough? And is it convenient enough?
A couple reviews also came out this week for the new Apple Watch, such as this one from Mashable. The health-related features were rated as just OK, as they’re more about fitness than the actual monitoring of your physiological status.
It seems as though a new health-monitoring device, wearable and/or configurable, comes out of the woodwork every day. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great thing.
But I keep wondering. When is that one affordable and accessible device going to hit the market that everyone will buy and use to monitor their health 24/7? That one device that becomes an essential part of our daily lives, the way Internet access is now considered a standard utility? That one device that’s been truly commoditized?
Will it be from Apple? Samsung? A company not yet known? When, not if, that happens, I’ll know we’re on to something. On to better health. But, for now, I’ll just raise my glass of wine and toast “To Life!”
