Thermo, an accurate thermometer that does not require skin contact received a Food and Drug Administration clearance and now classified as Class lla medical device. The device was revealed at CES 2016 by Withings, a French consumer electronics company that was recently aquired by Nokia.
The Thermo can measure human temperature with just a sweep across the forehead. This means there will no more sticking of thermometer in the armpit, tounge or rectum. It uses a HotSpot Sensor Technology which has 16 infrared sensors that can take over 4,000 measurments to find the hottest point, as mentioned on Withing's website.
Thermo is easy to read as it has a big display and uses a color-coded LED indicator that tells if the temperature is normal, elevated or too high depending on the age of the user. The measurement is synced to a smartphone application that can provide advance health advice based fever history, age and symptoms.
The smartphone application also colaborates with the Boston Children's Hospital's Thermia, another application that provides education information on proper medication and dosages. Aside from temperature tracker and symptoms, the application allows its users to enter comments, medication and photos that can be shared to a doctor for as a patient's complete medical record.
Thermo can support up to eight users whose each name will appear on the device and readings will appear on the assigned profile on the application. The device connects to smartphone through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth if the first one is not present. It only takes two seconds to measure the temperature and vibrates twice once the reading is complete.
The device is available for $100 from Apple's online and physical store as well as Withing's online store. While it is not a cheap alternative, Thermo, compared to traditional thermometer is way more convenient and safer to use as it avoids any contact with body fluids.
On the other hand, Withings is known to upgrade common health products. One of their recent creations is a bathroom scale that is connected to a smartphone that tracks not only the user's weight but also fat mass, muscle mass, heart rate and the percentage of water in the body, as reported by Gizmodo.