Oliver Haslam on May 19, 2020, 8:09 pm

This iPhone AR App And Accessory Lets You Test For Coronavirus At Home

The kit exists to allow people to scan themselves for coronavirus, according to an Engadget report. It’s made up of an ultrasound wand and an augmented reality app, of all things.

According to the report you don’t need to have ant medical training in order to be able to use the kit and the FDA has already licensed it to monitor the condition of those who have already been diagnosed with coronavirus.

The beauty of Butterfly’s approach to telemedicine is that you don’t have to know a thing about ultrasound systems to use it. If a patient is given one to use, they can connect the iQ to their iPhones and have a professional guide them through the process, complete with on-screen cues to help them orient the probe correctly. (Thanks to a little augmented reality help, the doctor(s) on the other end of the call can see exactly which way the patient is holding the probe.)

That’s the good news. But, as always, there’s some bad news to go along with it.

This time it’s the fact that one of those ultrasound wands costs around $2000. So it’s unlikely you’re going to be picking one of these up and using it at home to satisfy your own curiosity. But this is just the start and these things tend to fall in price over time.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before that’s the case here, too.