Azoi Inc.’s ‘Wello’ smartphone case doubles up as a personal health monitor and measures heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen levels and other lung functions and displays the ECG waves from your heart.
SanFranscico-based Azoi Inc. unveiled a smartphone case that can measure many vital signs of the user including heart rate, blood pressure, electrocardiogram, blood oxygen, temperature and respiration.
All the sensors inside the case, be it thermometer or pulse-oximeter, are very thin and contained in an ultralight removable card roughly the same thickness of your business card.
Called Wello, the smartphone case is fast and easy-to-use. All you have to do is to place your fingers on the case and wait for a few seconds and the hidden sensors in the device take the measurements and pass them on to the accompanied app to provide instantaneous results that give a snapshot of your health.
What can the Wello sensors and app do?
- Wello can measure and keep track of your heart rate to sense any potential heart problems.
- Take an ECG to map the electrical activity of your heart without using any fussy equipment with wires.
- Monitor your blood pressure at any time to identify patterns of spikes and dips throughout a day.
- Measure blood oxygen levels and lung functions to know how much air you inhale and exhale.
- A medical-grade thermometer that reads your temperature with high accuracy.
"Over the last two years, we have focused our efforts on coming up with a technologically advanced yet easy-to-use tool to help you monitor health and facilitate better lifestyle choices,"
Said Hamish Patel, founder and CEO at Azoi.
"We are proud to introduce Wello - a not so small engineering feat in microelectronics, nanosensors, imaging, data analytics and design, that we hope will make a big difference in helping the world become a healthier place. We have effectively put health monitoring equipment, typically in large form factors, into a highly convenient and accessible mobile phone case."
World Health Organization’s statistics reveal that heart problems, respiratory problems and diabetes are the leading causes of death worldwide.
Heart diseases kill nearly 7 million people every year, more than 347 million people have diabetes and nearly a billion people suffer from hypertension.
One of the objectives of digital health technology has been to quantify health data using simple, ubiquitous and easy-to-use sensors and wearables with complete user control so as to allow them monitor their health status regularly and continuously to initiate and encourage health-related behavioral pattern changes.
Regular monitoring also allows them to identify potential problems early on and seek medical interventions before they become serious health complications.
"All too often, health problems go undetected until they are too late to address,"
says Hamish.
"We believe that through improved self-awareness of key vitals, technology could very easily reduce the incidence and impact of a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Not only could this help ensure healthier, happier lives, but it could also ease the growing burden on healthcare services."
Wello smartphone case comes with an accompanied app in both iOS and Android versions but the case is only compatible with iPhone 4S, 5, and 5S models; however it can used as a stand-alone device on all other phones.
It is also compatible with other health and fitness devices such as pedometers and sleep trackers.
Wello is not yet FDA-cleared and the company expects the approval within this year but in the meantime users can pre-order it for $199 in 35 countries from their website.
