UChek App: Test for Pregnancy Using Your iPhone
You’re no doubt familiar with home pregnancy tests. Even if you’ve never had to use one yourself, you’ve likely seen movies where women pile into a bathroom while one of them pees on a stick, and then they all wait breathlessly for the line, plus sign, or whatever change will symbolize whether or not a woman is with child. But even knowing that these tests can be bought over the counter at any pharmacy, you might be surprised to learn that you could take one using your smartphone. Now, your first thought probably has something to do with the logistics of such a test. After all, nobody is going to pee on their iPhone, no matter how much they want to know if they’re pregnant. But thanks to a new app in development, called uChek, you will soon be able to purchase a kit that works with an iPhone application to tell you the results of a urine test. And one of the many benefits is that you can use it to discover whether or not the stork is on the way.
Interestingly, uChek is not the first app of its type. It turns out there are other such apps already available or in the works, such as Piddle, a urinalysis app created last year by a Danish design team (from healthcare company Line) for Health Hack Day in Sweden. And later this year, self-diagnosis bigwig Scanadu is set to release ScanaFlo, a similar application. So what makes the smartphone-compatible app designed by BioSense better than the rest? In truth, uChek may be no better or worse than its competitors (although it certainly has the best name). But it seems that it will become widely available first, which could put it at the head of the pack.
The application will be available for download on iOS devices at the end of March and users will pay twenty dollars. For the money you’ll get not only the app, but also a kit that comes with test strips (to pee on) and a color-coded chart to that will allow the app to analyze your urine. So how does it work, and what can you learn? The mechanics are simple enough; all you have to do is dip a strip into a container of urine and then set it on the chart to start. You’ll snap a photo with your smartphone’s camera and the app will compare the colors on the strip to those on the chart in order to give you results.
The app can accurately analyze the results in order to tell you whether or not you are experiencing one of 25 different conditions, including pregnancy, a UTI, pre-clampsia, or diabetes, just to name a few. As a result you’ll no longer have to worry about trying to eyeball the color chart yourself (am I pregnant or am I suffering from kidney failure?). It could just save you from taking another trip to the California cryobank when you’ve already successfully fertilized an egg. With the health industry keen to find means of self-diagnosis that people can trust, uChek seems to be a step in the right direction. And for the couple trying to get pregnant it’s a lot easier than running to the store every few days for more confusing at-home pregnancy tests.