21 ms·

Scanadu to shut down support for its Scout device and customers are mad

105 points by matco11 10y ago

pboutros 10y ago
This is exactly why firms that build medical devices need to be fully transparent about what they're actually building in the eyes of the law, and what regulatory hurdles it must overcome before being being able to do the things people are likely to assume it can.
- ars 10y ago
  I think people would be fine with shutting down the study - but why remote shut down the devices? That's going too far. The are passive devices, not active. They don't need much regulatory oversight if you don't use the data for anything medical.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Didn't Facebook get in trouble for violating research principles in their emotional-manipulation experiments, something to do with informed consent? Scanadu would appear to me to have done something similar.
josephpmay 10y ago
Couldn't tell they end the trial and release open-source sorftware for the device that people can use at their own risk?
- taneq 10y ago
  > From the beginning of the campaign, this was an investigational device that was part of a study which has now reached its endpoint with data collection for the study ending in November 2016,” a Scanadu spokesperson told TechCrunch. “FDA regulations require that all investigational studies be brought to closure and their respective devices be deactivated. As a result, we will deactivate the Scanadu Scout® devices by May 15, 2017. I'd guess it's considered a safety measure - even if it's something innocuous-seeming, any 'medical device' could end up with peoples' lives depending on it. It's better for it to stop working entirely than to appear to keep working if it's not reliable.
  - new299 10y ago
    Basically I think that's dumb. That sounds harsh, but I think this is over-reach on the part of the FDA and is limiting innovation. A long as the device doesn't give a diagnostic output I don't see it as a big issue. The potential benefit from personal heath monitoring is huge. It's the same with 23andme and other consumer genomic tests, let people experiment a bit when it's essentially harmless.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - manquer 10y ago
    Well should it not have been clear in their campaign and communication from day ONE ? Why charge the user that much then? Can i get a refund now ? why con backers to pay for selling their data and $199 on top of that for just 18month "study"?
camus2 10y ago
To people who funded this, why ? There are some established products already on that market, why buy into a crowdfunding campaign when you can buy the same thing from established vendors ? why take the risk ? reminds me all these drone campaigns (like Zano and co), you can go on the internet, buy a drone, and even send it back if it doesn't work properly, if you buy it from Amazon or Ebay. With crowd funding you'll pay then wait years to get your products if it ever comes and by the time it is there you can get the exact same product, even cheaper from honest vendors. I don't understand why people choose to bear all the risk without some form of compensation. But I'd like to understand. I'm not talking about indie video games or an music album that needs funding, but crowd funding tech products in general.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  The best is when Chinese copies of your crowdfunded product are available for 1/5th the price before shipping date of crowdfunded product. It's happened numerous times, e.g. with http://get.pressybutton.com http://get.pressybutton.com IIRC.
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    So if I want to have a device without doing all the work of getting it built, I can just put together a Kickstarter and then refund everyone once the knockoff is on the market?
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      Or buy the clones from the copier at the lower price, pass them on to your backers and profit! What could possibly go wrong!?! Or - product-ception - create a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market.
      - ansgri 10y ago
        create a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market. This is what successful research groups do: get an industrial customer, invent some tech in the process (but you won't have neither time nor desire to do the boring work of academic writing), and when the project is complete, get some funding for the results you already have. Everybody's happy, just don't forget to negotiate rights to retain the basic (not application-specific) technology.
smoyer 10y ago
Property rights are pretty ambiguous when a device purchased by a consumer requires a backend service and/or is managed by an outside company. Yhe consumer has no control and while they might own the hardware they have no guarantee of it's continued utility. Companies claiming DCMA violations against those who choose to alter their devices also limits their effective ownership. I personally avoid buying devices like this in the first place. I do however think this company should be put out of business as they clearly misled their backers. Is there any information on how many of these wer sold? The device certainly doesn't look like it cost anywhere near $199 to manufacture. And if there enough people interested in hacking the device to do a clean-room reverse-engineering project it looks like it would be a fun little project. Is anyone who owns one of these willing to loan it out for a while? They might also become cheap on eBay next May. EDIT: As I've thought about this a bit more, why not push a firmware update for your users that allows the device to collect the information as a fitness device? Surely if a machine in the local mall can take my blood pressure without a technician monitoring it, you can own a scout that provides reasonably accurate measurements?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Yeah, I have the same rule of thumb right now - if it's cloud-dependent, steer clear. Especially if the device should presumably be partially or fully functional off-line, but isn't, because "cloud powah!" (in reality, because of the shitty business model that's basically "Hardware as a Service" + possibly data selling). > The device certainly doesn't look like it cost anywhere near $199 to manufacture. I can imagine it costing that much in very small batches, if it uses somewhat decent sensors. I can imagine $199 would be the cost of making a somewhat decent DIY version. I couldn't find any teardown though, and I'm pretty interested what sensors are they using, and if they're any better than the usual crap installed in fitness devices.
  - smoyer 10y ago
    I spent the first 20 years of my career as an embedded systems engineer and the most expensive parts were generally the case and power supply. For devices with specialized sensors, they generally dominated the costs. I think you're right - it's the sensors that matter. I don't think $199 will buy you a laboratory grade sensor though. If we're going to make OSS firmware for this (and what's "firmware" now that everything is FLASH?), creating a tear-down will be the first step. Anyone willing to loan one of these to TeMPOraL or me? If you're capable of doing it yourself, could you create a tear-down?
Spooky23 10y ago
My rule: no cloud service dependent devices >$50. Exceptions are companies like Apple and maybe Microsoft that are capable of supporting the device for a lifecycle. Obviously Google is out.
- lighthazard 10y ago
  Why is Google out? Have any of their cloud service devices been put to pasture?
  - stephenc_c_ 10y ago
    Google Reader, Picasa and many more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...
  - pikzen 10y ago
    You could consider that Alphabet buying Nest and them shutting down all service was in a way Google stopping operations on that. But I believe that is mostly related to the unending list of services they have stopped. Code, Reader, or even APIs and libraries they stop without a single warning (cough cough angular v1.x). Seriously, the list is big. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...
  - pherq 10y ago
    Nest remotely bricked Revolv devices a year and a bit after acquiring the company.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    I have no faith in Google's ability to deliver consumer services that aren't part of the core business and are free. Facebook is eroding that core business, so I expected more belt-tightening in coming years.
- Fnoord 10y ago
  $50 seems like an arbitrary number, not a logical chosen barrier. What about your data, and your privacy? Is that worth anything? You say you have Apple (and maybe Microsoft) as exception but Microsoft was one of the first to join PRISM program. Apple's in it as well. Apple uses Siri. Do you entrust Apple with your voice data? With your Spotlight searches (or Microsoft, as I saw today that was being used, and I know I never set it up to use Bing cause I don't use Bing)? If you're not from the USA, it'd be stupid to depend on US cloud services ever since the Snowden revelations. Before that as well, but then it was just all theory. Cloud is sometimes invisible and, well, murky (cloudy) as to . Therein lies a danger. A program like Signal does it right, but that is merely communication. I have no idea what the feasible alternative would be to cloud because something like a mobile phone just isn't powerful enough, and has its own set of privacy and security issues on top of that.
JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
What is the FDA's problem with it? I feel like with this sort of thing and the 23andme.com issue that the FDA is being too restrictive about things that really shouldn't even be under their jurisdiction in the first place. For drugs, stringent testing and regulations is great, but how is someone going to harm themselves by knowing things about their own genome or recording things like their own body temperature and heart rate?
- camus2 10y ago
  The FDA thing is an excuse. The FDA didn't shut down their product, they are lying.
  - JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
    Oh yep you are right. That article seems to be completely misleading or lying about that. https://twitter.com/walterdebrouwer/status/809107133635514369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/walterdebrouwer/status/80910713363551436...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - wyager 10y ago
    The GP's question is valid, though. Why does the FDA insist on shutting down or restricting services like 23AndMe when the worst case scenario for a service failure is that you get a false positive on a disease risk indicator (for which you're going to have to go to a real doctor to confirm anyway) or you think you're 1/8th Irish when you're actually 1/8th Welsh?
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      The FDA's claim to jurisdiction (which I feel is BS) ... is that 23&me were providing "medical advice" or "diagnoses" by saying that you share genomes linked to x percent chance of Y ...
Fnoord 10y ago
This is why the right to be forgotten is important. It was a mistake to grant these people your personal data, but at the very least you can make them delete your personal data.
taylorhou 10y ago
@temporal @smoyer I'll happily lend mine. PM me to coordinate or my username at Gmail. I did just google image search the scout and the version I have must be one of the earliest batches
siculars 10y ago
I got the email from them. It said "cease to function." And so, I wrote them to ask what that means. They hit me with a generic: Dear, Thank you for supporting our crowdfunding campaign for the Scanadu Scout® investigational device on Indiegogo. When we started developing the Scanadu Scout®, we knew there was a great deal of work ahead of us. The Scanadu Scout® was a first of its kind, and we remain committed to bringing innovative technologies to consumers. Through this journey, we have collected an enormous amount of data over the past two years, which will inform the development of future products. We are now turning our attention towards future products. We look forward to sharing more on the new opportunities we’ve decided to pursue in the upcoming months. Regards, Scanadu Team www.scanadu.com Scanadu Inc, 1196 Borregas Avenue, Ste 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 And this, of course, is why you have to be very careful before investing in Indigogo/Kickstarter projects. Also, why I won't use a fitbit. Anyone know how to intercept fitbit data?
TideP 10y ago
I diligently read all the comments and besides all the good and superbly clear points made I have to say that the strongest is that Scanadu has, for a certain extend, mislead its backers to pay $199 to provide them with big health data, something that they would have paid for using the Mechanical Turk platform. In the end, they clearly scammed myself and other people out of their money and data.

105 points by matco11 10y ago

This is exactly why firms that build medical devices need to be fully transparent about what they're actually building in the eyes of the law, and what regulatory hurdles it must overcome before being being able to do the things people are likely to assume it can.

ars 10y ago
I think people would be fine with shutting down the study - but why remote shut down the devices? That's going too far. The are passive devices, not active. They don't need much regulatory oversight if you don't use the data for anything medical.
rhizome 10y ago
Didn't Facebook get in trouble for violating research principles in their emotional-manipulation experiments, something to do with informed consent? Scanadu would appear to me to have done something similar.

josephpmay 10y ago

Couldn't tell they end the trial and release open-source sorftware for the device that people can use at their own risk?

taneq 10y ago
> From the beginning of the campaign, this was an investigational device that was part of a study which has now reached its endpoint with data collection for the study ending in November 2016,” a Scanadu spokesperson told TechCrunch. “FDA regulations require that all investigational studies be brought to closure and their respective devices be deactivated. As a result, we will deactivate the Scanadu Scout® devices by May 15, 2017. I'd guess it's considered a safety measure - even if it's something innocuous-seeming, any 'medical device' could end up with peoples' lives depending on it. It's better for it to stop working entirely than to appear to keep working if it's not reliable.
- new299 10y ago
  Basically I think that's dumb. That sounds harsh, but I think this is over-reach on the part of the FDA and is limiting innovation. A long as the device doesn't give a diagnostic output I don't see it as a big issue. The potential benefit from personal heath monitoring is huge. It's the same with 23andme and other consumer genomic tests, let people experiment a bit when it's essentially harmless.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- manquer 10y ago
  Well should it not have been clear in their campaign and communication from day ONE ? Why charge the user that much then? Can i get a refund now ? why con backers to pay for selling their data and $199 on top of that for just 18month "study"?

camus2 10y ago

To people who funded this, why ? There are some established products already on that market, why buy into a crowdfunding campaign when you can buy the same thing from established vendors ? why take the risk ? reminds me all these drone campaigns (like Zano and co), you can go on the internet, buy a drone, and even send it back if it doesn't work properly, if you buy it from Amazon or Ebay. With crowd funding you'll pay then wait years to get your products if it ever comes and by the time it is there you can get the exact same product, even cheaper from honest vendors. I don't understand why people choose to bear all the risk without some form of compensation. But I'd like to understand. I'm not talking about indie video games or an music album that needs funding, but crowd funding tech products in general.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
The best is when Chinese copies of your crowdfunded product are available for 1/5th the price before shipping date of crowdfunded product. It's happened numerous times, e.g. with http://get.pressybutton.com http://get.pressybutton.com IIRC.
- GavinMcG 10y ago
  So if I want to have a device without doing all the work of getting it built, I can just put together a Kickstarter and then refund everyone once the knockoff is on the market?
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Or buy the clones from the copier at the lower price, pass them on to your backers and profit! What could possibly go wrong!?! Or - product-ception - create a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market.
    - ansgri 10y ago
      create a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market. This is what successful research groups do: get an industrial customer, invent some tech in the process (but you won't have neither time nor desire to do the boring work of academic writing), and when the project is complete, get some funding for the results you already have. Everybody's happy, just don't forget to negotiate rights to retain the basic (not application-specific) technology.

smoyer 10y ago

Property rights are pretty ambiguous when a device purchased by a consumer requires a backend service and/or is managed by an outside company. Yhe consumer has no control and while they might own the hardware they have no guarantee of it's continued utility. Companies claiming DCMA violations against those who choose to alter their devices also limits their effective ownership. I personally avoid buying devices like this in the first place. I do however think this company should be put out of business as they clearly misled their backers. Is there any information on how many of these wer sold? The device certainly doesn't look like it cost anywhere near $199 to manufacture. And if there enough people interested in hacking the device to do a clean-room reverse-engineering project it looks like it would be a fun little project. Is anyone who owns one of these willing to loan it out for a while? They might also become cheap on eBay next May. EDIT: As I've thought about this a bit more, why not push a firmware update for your users that allows the device to collect the information as a fitness device? Surely if a machine in the local mall can take my blood pressure without a technician monitoring it, you can own a scout that provides reasonably accurate measurements?

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Yeah, I have the same rule of thumb right now - if it's cloud-dependent, steer clear. Especially if the device should presumably be partially or fully functional off-line, but isn't, because "cloud powah!" (in reality, because of the shitty business model that's basically "Hardware as a Service" + possibly data selling). > The device certainly doesn't look like it cost anywhere near $199 to manufacture. I can imagine it costing that much in very small batches, if it uses somewhat decent sensors. I can imagine $199 would be the cost of making a somewhat decent DIY version. I couldn't find any teardown though, and I'm pretty interested what sensors are they using, and if they're any better than the usual crap installed in fitness devices.
- smoyer 10y ago
  I spent the first 20 years of my career as an embedded systems engineer and the most expensive parts were generally the case and power supply. For devices with specialized sensors, they generally dominated the costs. I think you're right - it's the sensors that matter. I don't think $199 will buy you a laboratory grade sensor though. If we're going to make OSS firmware for this (and what's "firmware" now that everything is FLASH?), creating a tear-down will be the first step. Anyone willing to loan one of these to TeMPOraL or me? If you're capable of doing it yourself, could you create a tear-down?

Spooky23 10y ago

My rule: no cloud service dependent devices >$50. Exceptions are companies like Apple and maybe Microsoft that are capable of supporting the device for a lifecycle. Obviously Google is out.

lighthazard 10y ago
Why is Google out? Have any of their cloud service devices been put to pasture?
- stephenc_c_ 10y ago
  Google Reader, Picasa and many more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...
- pikzen 10y ago
  You could consider that Alphabet buying Nest and them shutting down all service was in a way Google stopping operations on that. But I believe that is mostly related to the unending list of services they have stopped. Code, Reader, or even APIs and libraries they stop without a single warning (cough cough angular v1.x). Seriously, the list is big. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...
- pherq 10y ago
  Nest remotely bricked Revolv devices a year and a bit after acquiring the company.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I have no faith in Google's ability to deliver consumer services that aren't part of the core business and are free. Facebook is eroding that core business, so I expected more belt-tightening in coming years.
Fnoord 10y ago
$50 seems like an arbitrary number, not a logical chosen barrier. What about your data, and your privacy? Is that worth anything? You say you have Apple (and maybe Microsoft) as exception but Microsoft was one of the first to join PRISM program. Apple's in it as well. Apple uses Siri. Do you entrust Apple with your voice data? With your Spotlight searches (or Microsoft, as I saw today that was being used, and I know I never set it up to use Bing cause I don't use Bing)? If you're not from the USA, it'd be stupid to depend on US cloud services ever since the Snowden revelations. Before that as well, but then it was just all theory. Cloud is sometimes invisible and, well, murky (cloudy) as to . Therein lies a danger. A program like Signal does it right, but that is merely communication. I have no idea what the feasible alternative would be to cloud because something like a mobile phone just isn't powerful enough, and has its own set of privacy and security issues on top of that.

JohnJamesRambo 10y ago

What is the FDA's problem with it? I feel like with this sort of thing and the 23andme.com issue that the FDA is being too restrictive about things that really shouldn't even be under their jurisdiction in the first place. For drugs, stringent testing and regulations is great, but how is someone going to harm themselves by knowing things about their own genome or recording things like their own body temperature and heart rate?

camus2 10y ago
The FDA thing is an excuse. The FDA didn't shut down their product, they are lying.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
  Oh yep you are right. That article seems to be completely misleading or lying about that. https://twitter.com/walterdebrouwer/status/809107133635514369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/walterdebrouwer/status/80910713363551436...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wyager 10y ago
  The GP's question is valid, though. Why does the FDA insist on shutting down or restricting services like 23AndMe when the worst case scenario for a service failure is that you get a false positive on a disease risk indicator (for which you're going to have to go to a real doctor to confirm anyway) or you think you're 1/8th Irish when you're actually 1/8th Welsh?
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    The FDA's claim to jurisdiction (which I feel is BS) ... is that 23&me were providing "medical advice" or "diagnoses" by saying that you share genomes linked to x percent chance of Y ...

Fnoord 10y ago

This is why the right to be forgotten is important. It was a mistake to grant these people your personal data, but at the very least you can make them delete your personal data.

taylorhou 10y ago

@temporal @smoyer I'll happily lend mine. PM me to coordinate or my username at Gmail. I did just google image search the scout and the version I have must be one of the earliest batches

siculars 10y ago

I got the email from them. It said "cease to function." And so, I wrote them to ask what that means. They hit me with a generic: Dear, Thank you for supporting our crowdfunding campaign for the Scanadu Scout® investigational device on Indiegogo. When we started developing the Scanadu Scout®, we knew there was a great deal of work ahead of us. The Scanadu Scout® was a first of its kind, and we remain committed to bringing innovative technologies to consumers. Through this journey, we have collected an enormous amount of data over the past two years, which will inform the development of future products. We are now turning our attention towards future products. We look forward to sharing more on the new opportunities we’ve decided to pursue in the upcoming months. Regards, Scanadu Team www.scanadu.com Scanadu Inc, 1196 Borregas Avenue, Ste 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 And this, of course, is why you have to be very careful before investing in Indigogo/Kickstarter projects. Also, why I won't use a fitbit. Anyone know how to intercept fitbit data?

TideP 10y ago

I diligently read all the comments and besides all the good and superbly clear points made I have to say that the strongest is that Scanadu has, for a certain extend, mislead its backers to pay $199 to provide them with big health data, something that they would have paid for using the Mechanical Turk platform. In the end, they clearly scammed myself and other people out of their money and data.