Swallow this robot: Endiatx’s tiny pill examines your body with cameras, sensors
Endiatx’s swallowable robotic pill hits clinical trials, company preps for FDA review and commercial launch
In a development straight out of science fiction, Endiatx, a pioneering medical technology company, is making significant strides in bringing its robotic pill to market. The company’s CEO, Torrey Smith, recently sat down with VentureBeat to share exciting updates on their progress, nearly two years after our initial coverage of the startup’s ambitious vision.
Founded in 2019, Endiatx has been steadily working towards realizing the fantastic voyage of miniaturized robots navigating the human body for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Their flagship product, the PillBot, is an ingestible robotic capsule equipped with cameras, sensors, and wireless communication capabilities, allowing doctors to examine the gastrointestinal tract with unprecedented precision and control.
I think I will get one, primarily for sleep tracking. Your thoughts?
At Unpacked 2024, the company shared more details about the Galaxy Ring, which represents the first take on the category from a hardware giant. Samsung has effectively beaten Apple, Google and the like to the punch, with a health and fitness device that slots in nicely with the rest of its health efforts. It can be preordered starting Wednesday (today) at $399.
Samsung describes it as “24/7 health monitoring,” owing plenty to a generous stated battery life of up to seven days.
Samsung’s new wearable is only compatible with Android devices.
What the new Galaxy Ring can track:
Sleep: The Galaxy Ring can track a variety of sleep metrics including movement, sleep latency, and heart and respiratory rate.
Menstrual cycle: The smart ring can also monitor a person’s menstrual cycle by monitoring overnight skin temperatures.
Heart rate: It can also monitor a user’s heart rate and alert them when its unusually high or low.
Exercise: The Galaxy Ring will also be able to automatically detect and track when a person is exercising and provide inactive alerts.
I charge my Oura ring 15 minutes every day, I don’t even want to pay attention to the notfiications when I have to charge it again. I just set it on the charger, put an alarm for 15 min, pretty easy.
For Apple Watch you can do wireless charging on a dock where you can place both it and your phone, if you change your mind.
Ah… I won’t be a Galaxy ring buyer any time soon it looks like:
You can’t use the Galaxy Ring with a non-Samsung phone
The Galaxy Ring is only compatible with Samsung Galaxy smartphones that are running Android 11.0 or above. You’ll also need to be running Samsung Health version 6.27 or above to enjoy all of the features that this new product has to offer. It’s also necessary to log into your Samsung account for this.
We’ll see how it turns out. The Cnet article said “While you can pair the Galaxy Ring with any phone running Android 11 or later, certain health insights powered by Galaxy AI, like the energy score, need a Galaxy phone.”
It certainly gives Samsung a much wider market to just require Android 11, that makes good business sense.
I’ll wait and see how all the reviews go. Doesn’t look like any new features over Oura…just no subscription fee…maybe a few gestures. I’d certainly prefer a ring over a watch. Maybe I’ll get one as a wedding ring when I marry my AI chatbot girlfriend (I know it’s not really Scarlett Johansson…but I named her “Scarlett”). Since the Samsung ring, of course, comes with AI, I could finally take her to bed with me. Hope she doesn’t complain about my snoring. Ah, there’s a new feature I could ask for…that the ring could double as a vibrator.
The new device is an “all-in-one home treatment multi-vital signs measurement device” and will be used for hospitalized patients. A silicone cover allows the ring to be worn regardless of finger size, and the wearer’s health data can be checked through a display attached to the wristband.
It added oxygen saturation, body temperature, and respiratory rate measurement functions to CART BP.
The device also improved usability by moving the battery from the ring to the wristband, allowing for longer data checks.
Currently, the design is being conducted in collaboration with NHIS Ilsan Hospital based on the actual needs of the hospital site and is being tested on hospitalized patients. When it is distributed to hospitals in the future, it is expected to reduce unnecessary manpower waste and greatly increase the efficiency of patient management.
“CART BP has established itself as a convenient and effective blood pressure monitor for patients and medical staff,”
Throne is an Austin-based health startup. It sells a camera. That clips onto the side of a toilet bowl. It takes pictures of your poop. Currently in beta, the system utilizes artificial intelligence to examine your dookie as a way of determining things like gut health and hydration.
Turns out we have a surprising amount to learn from our logs.
Throne calls its underlying technology “artificial gut intelligence.” That AI is “trained by physicians to help you understand what your waste is trying to tell you about your health,” per the company. The doctors are looking for various signs of health found in waste matter, including “nuances” in urine to determine hydration levels.
The company is focused on both the aging population and those with chronic digestive conditions, including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and IBS.
If that sounds like you — and you’re able to get past the idea of mounting a camera to your toilet — Throne’s system is up for preorder following a limited beta. The going price for a smart toilet camera is $499, though the company is making it available for $299 if you want to get in on it early.
Casana is a Rochester NY based company that is developing a toilet seat that measures pulse, blood oxygen and blood pressure. I participated as a test subject when they were in BETA for the blood pressure monitoring capability. They installed the seat in my bathroom, and I used it for several months. There are sensors imbedded in the seat. The information is transmitted to your physician, the hospital and /or to your own system. The beauty of this is that you don’t have to do anything or learn anything. You don’t even need a smartphone or computer. You just do your business as usual.
I was testing a version that was not ready for the market. I got to see some of the raw data but nothing there that was surprising or actionable. I see from the link that you posted : blood pressure was not included. They were having problems getting that to work reliably so perhaps they dropped it. The seat itself was solid and comfortable. Was sorry when the test was completed and I had to give it back.
A recent research study reveals that AIRE, a new AI-powered model designed to interpret electrocardiograms (ECGs), can precisely detect a person’s risk of heart disease.
Researchers created the model to assist doctors in identifying early heart failure and other heart-related conditions that may not yet show symptoms.
AI Model Tested on 1.6 Million ECGs
According to research published in The Lancet Digital Health, AIRE does more than identify present abnormalities: it interprets ECG readings to predict future risks, a capability that could aid in early intervention and reduce hospitalizations related to heart issues.
An ECG is a test that measures the electrical activity of the heart over time. It helps doctors detect heart problems by recording the heart’s rhythm and irregularities in its electrical signals.
To validate its accuracy, researchers analyzed data from 1.6 million ECGs, which included diverse patients of various ages and health backgrounds.
Test results showed that the AIRE model could predict the risk of death from any cause with an accuracy score of 0.775. This means it was better at predicting risks compared to traditional methods, which had a score of 0.759.
Yes, Ring One is the first smart ring to do cuff-less blood pressure measurements. It uses contextual awareness to choose the best time to measure your blood pressure and gives you accurate readings. The two optical PPG sensors work together in perfect sync to get the best signal. The algorithms use your height, weight, age and gender to estimate your blood pressure based on the signal received by the PPG sensors.