A new application under development on the other side of the Atlantic wants to transform your phone into a thermometer, and without modifying anything!
The smartphone has become an object so close to us that more and more researchers want to make it a health tool. And while some want to be able to predict the risk of user mortality, others have more practical ambitions, and are considering turning it into a thermometer! Moreover, the Google Pixel 8 Pro had already thought of this feature.
A thermometer that starts from the battery
This is the idea of researchers from the University of Washington who have developed an application called “FeverPhone”. An application whose operation is particularly well seen.
Indeed, the latter uses the touch screen of the smartphone to be able to come into contact with the body of the owner. Behind, there are elements added to the battery, and known as the thermistor, which will be able to analyze the temperature and give a figure. Because these are components used as much to capture the temperature of the battery of a smartphone as in thermometers for medical purposes.
After smartphones, connected watches?
With this application, it would be enough to simply put the screen of the smartphone against the forehead to obtain the temperature of your body! FeverPhone was tested in an emergency department on a cohort of 37 people, 16 of whom had at least a moderate fever, and managed to give their temperature with an accuracy similar to that of consumer thermometers.
If only three models of smartphones have been tested for the moment, the principal researcher Joseph Breda explains that he wants to try the experiment again on other devices. ” I am already working on the possibility of obtaining a similar signal with a connected watch. What’s nice, because the watches are much smaller, is that their temperature changes faster. We could therefore imagine that a user places a Fitbit on his forehead and measures in 10 seconds whether he has a fever or not. “, he thus indicated.
Source : University of Washington
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