When most of us think of thermometers, we think of a tool that reads our temperatures, but KINSA, the maker of the first FDA approved smart phone thermometer, has released a thermometer that is slated to assist in healing entire communities.
Like many other tools used with smartphones, the KINSA Smart Thermometer connects to mobile devices through the headphone jack.
Temperature results appear on the phone screen in less than 10 seconds.
What sets this thermometer apart is it can actually confirm whether you’re sick. You will be able to tell if your child just has the common cold or if you need to take them to the doctor’s office because they have strep throat.
The thermometer works along with KINSA’s mobile app allowing you to create separate profiles for each member of a family, record and monitor illness history, track medicine dosages and gives you the option to document physical symptoms by uploading photos.
The app maintains a profile of your temperature, your symptoms and uses that information to give advice on tackling the sickness.
As all of these temperatures and symptoms get collected, they are added into an information database. While the user’s identity is concealed, the data is used for a greater purpose.
Inder Singh, founder of KINSA, says the ultimate goal of the KINSA Smart Thermometer is to be able to build a “real time map” of health conditions using mobile technologies to track illnesses and stop them from spreading locally, nationally and globally.
Singh believes that people will be able to get better and stay healthier if they have an idea what’s happening in their community health-wise.
If multiple households are using Smart Thermometer to take the temperature of children and adults at the first sign of a cold, fever or flu, they can create groups with other Smart Thermometer users to identify patterns, or as KINSA calls it, “under the weather” maps.
You can see how many colds have been reported, average temperatures and what the symptoms are in your community.
If people built school groups, neighborhood groups or workplace groups through the KINSA app, the data collected would instantly serve as a warning for group members to start building up their children’s immune systems as more coughs and sneezes start happening. Or you would know to be cautious about hygiene if flu symptoms start spreading through your work office.
The KINSA Smart Thermometer retails at $29.99 at the apple store, CVS and Amazon. The KINSA mobile app is free to download for Apple and Android phones.
Is this something you would use?
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