BENGALURU: A Bengaluru-based company has developed a portable device that can do a fertility test with the help of one’s smartphone. The same device can also be soon used to test multiple medical conditions.
The device uses a self-developed tech called ‘flat lens technology’. Test strips or rapid test cards are widely used in the labs and clinics to analyse body parameters like thyroid, glucose, Vitamin D, fertility. However, the readers that measure these values are very bulky and expensive.
Flat lens technology allows the smartphone’s camera to capture images of medical test strips accurately in the small and portable device.
“Our algorithms measure the colours in the images to get the values of the biomarkers – like Estrogen and LH for fertility, and TSH for Thyroid. They also adapt themselves to the type of test strip and allow a single device to perform dozens of tests,” says Aayush Rai, co-founder of Inito, that developed the device. Asked about how the device is different from those available in the market, Ayaush, says, “Existing devices do one or a small set of tests – like glucometers, offer no data tracking or analysis, are not intelligent enough to interpret the data and have a non-standard and unintuitive user interface between different devices.”
“Inito can do a digital ovulation test. The technology of measuring, say a thyroid test is the same as a fertility test, only the strip changes. Other tests run on the same technology. Even with fertility, they do two tests together - hormones Estrogen and LH. Thyroid, Vitamin D, and Glucose will be added in the next six to eight months whereas others will take 12-15 months,” he adds. The device can also be extended to other tests for cholesterol, creatinine, stress, STD’s.
Concluding, he says, “It is also capable of reading a multitude of test strips on a single device. All the data is stored in the app which can be analysed at any point by the user or a doctor. It keeps track on trends in data.”