A new app will allow pregnant women to conduct an ultrasound and receive an accurate fetal heart rate from their mobile phones.
  • rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6 hours

    As a hardware and software professional, this headline sounds like 100% bullshit.

    allows your phone to measure prenatal heartbeat

    That is not the same thing as an ultrasound scanner.

    It’s a microphone app which trims to, and amplifies, specific frequencies which allows you to monitor the baby’s pulse.

    You absolutely can use your phone with an ultrasound scanner, but this requires external hardware which, while not restricted, is not super cheap.

    • blueworld@piefed.worldEnglish
      4 hours

      Absolutely bullshit in a headline, but also potential mamas will probably use this often. The value in hearing your baby’s heartbeat is probably a huge reassurance to many.

      Having said that, as a hardware professional, when could we see a consumer accessible mobile ultrasound? I don’t have a spare $2-5k for what they use in ambulances, but I am hoping something low res low quality is accessible in a few years. (Having just read about the open source phased array, I have new hope for many things).

      • rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1 hour

        Unfortunately it’s not a matter of capability, but certification. Your watch probably has more processing and imaging power than the best medical systems available in the late 90s, but if you’re planning to market it as anything with even a whiff of medical application, even from the home, then it will need ISO 13485 certification in order to obtain required insurance that costs enough to prevent medical market entry for most businesses, especially when you combine that with the concept of unborn babies.

      • Hnery@feddit.orgEnglish
        3 hours

        I mean, according to the rule of phamaceutics, the equivalent costs fo a non-medical ultrasound would be about 10-fold cheaper. So if you don’t care about eventual side effects, you could have an absolute bargain