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The thing is that made-up or not, this is a really good idea. An idea whose time has come. Something like it is probably inevitable. Everywhere you go, you see
by glenra 12y ago
The thing is that made-up or not, this is a really good idea. An idea whose time has come. Something like it is probably inevitable.
Everywhere you go, you see people walking around with Apple headphones in their ears much of the time. The hardware connected to those headphones doesn't merely send music out to the ears from the phone, it also accepts signals in the other direction to enable microphone input and a few buttons for pause/play and volume up/down. So sending other sorts of signals back doesn't require any new hardware on the phone.
There currently exist devices that take body temperature by sticking a sensor in the ear. Apple has a history of sticking all sorts of tiny sensors in their phones to enable new software features. So why not an earbud thermometer?
If they stuck a temperature sensor in the headphone it would enable these features:
(1) an plain old on-demand thermometer app. Think you might have a fever? There's an app for that! Wonder what temperature it is outside? Same app! A temperature sensor inside the phone mostly tells you how hot the battery and processor are but a temperature sensor in the earbud tells you your own temperature (when you're wearing them) or the ambient local temperature (when you take them out). Both are useful information.
(2) A background thermometer-based health check. Listen to music on headphones and the iPhone can warn you if you have a fever or are overheating during a workout.
Even without more speculative features - blood sugar or blood pressure testing - this is doable. Somebody will make this product.
- SoftwareMaven 12y agoThat this is a good idea that seems completely reasonable with today's tech is why this thing took off like it did, especially combined with the current buzz on personalized healthcare. Honestly, the author probably could not have chosen a device more likely to sweep the rumor mill by storm.
- drham 12y agoIt's possible, there is a company called Valencell (http://www.valencell.com http://www.valencell.com) that has been working on this for a few years. There a few products using that technology that are out already, not sure how good they are right now, but promising technology for sure.
- encoderer 12y agoMeh, I think the idea is thin. So I can have biometrics info only when i stick something in my head? Quantified Self or whatever you want to call it is certainly big business, but it NEEDS passive data collection to ever be a mainstream success. Thus the fitbit, and possibly the iWatch. "Just stick these sensors in your ears" is not a good solution to this. And "All the info you want about what your body is doing while you listen to music" is not exactly what I'm going after when I use these apps.
- lmm 12y ago> "All the info you want about what your body is doing while you listen to music" is not exactly what I'm going after when I use these apps. When is it that you want the info on what your body is doing? Lots of joggers seem to listen to music at the same time.
- encoderer 12y agoWhen I sleep. When I get passive exercise like taking the steps instead of the lift. When I'm exercising with somebody else. When........
- not_that_noob 12y agoYes exactly. I want it monitoring when I sleep, not just when I listen to music. Fitbit isn't sweating this one.
- glenra 12y agoHaving the option of getting biometrics when you stick something in your head doesn't prevent getting data other ways too. Me, I listen to podcasts for an hour a day or so while my phone is in my pocket and the only thing touching my body directly is the earbuds. It'd be easy for the phone to be passively collecting data during that time - any time I'm listening to something via headphones - and it wouldn't require me to change my behavior or carry yet another device around. I live in New York, so I listen via earbuds while I take the subway. In California a lot of people listen via earbuds while they go jogging or work out at the gym. There are almost certainly enough people who listen via earbuds daily to make that feature "a mainstream success", even if it doesn't match your own use case. If you never use the earbuds, you don't have to buy the earbuds that do biometric monitoring. Or you can ignore that feature. There already exist apps that check your pulse (using the camera) and that check your sleeping patterns (you leave the phone charging on your bed; it uses the motion sensor). This would be just one more option along those lines. But I'm curious: What would you consider "a good solution to this"?