*The two blue LEDs are actually UV and are used to measure the fluorescence of the agent if antigen markers are present. The red LEDs read the control lines to ensure the test has been done correctly. The fluorescence is a difficult measurement!* *This video is not about which COVID-19 home test kit you should purchase. This is an exploration and analysis of this particular device for educational purposes only. For all medical advice regarding COVID-19 please contact your doctor.*
Sorry, don't understand - does 2 lines mean positive? Or 2 lines can still mean negative if the 2nd line isn't "fluorescent"? I ask because I just used one of these while having symptoms. It said negative, but when I cracked it open there was definitely a 2nd line (faint, but not difficult to see).
Like everyone else, I am disgusted by this. A complete waste, all so more data about you can be gathered in 'the cloud'. Meanwhile, small businesses trying to make actual useful products haven't been able to get MCUs in a year or more. What a joke.
To rub salt into the wound, over 2 million! of these were found to be defective so the company had to recall them or render them useless during recall (check FDA web-site for details). 2 million of these chips went bye-bye.
@@stevec5000 only a PCR test run by a professional medical laboratory that participates in cross laboratory calibration even approaches "certified accuracy". That's pretty much true for all medical tests.
@@stevec5000 The main source for inaccurate tests is user error. So to have a "certified" tests it cant be carried out by someone at home but needs to happen by a professional under controlled conditions.
@@nvzn Generally medical waste is incinerated. Not exactly, environmentally sounds to do that with plastics. Medical waste by definition is, at-least here in the US, NEVER recycled in any context.
Absolutely no reason for this to be electronic beyond the data logging on the cloud. The point he makes at the end about using optical analysis on the phone by taking a photo is valid. Huge waste of resources.
There is a reason - whether or not it is a good one is another matter. You need to expose it to the fluid, wait a certain amount of time, then read it. If you read it early, you'll get a false negative, if you wait too long, the test strip will change colour regardless, giving a false positive. So you have people with manual tests complaining about 'feint lines' or 'I looked at it after an hour and the line turned blue - is that positive? Sealing it in a box and getting a computer to read it at the correct time *should* make it more accurate.
@@robertbackhaus8911 did you not hear him say the 2 electronic ones he purchased gave false positives. He also said they had to remove them because a large batch gave false positives
Oh, wow. Now we see how chip shortage actually happened!!! Sorry for those months of the fabbing process to make one of the nRF SoCs. It wouldn't be too hard to have a refill strip for that test device though.
@@navadeep025 excellent comment!!! I had just liked a comment right above yours discussing cross contamination but your comment makes sense. I suppose it depends on how fast blood glucose degrades and how fast a corona virus degrades to ensure past strips wouldn’t affect a new strip.
I'm already annoyed that normal COVID tests have plastic bins around the test paper, and a foldable cardboard tray for the test tube. But seeing this.... wow, if well engineered those parts including battery can serve a good purpose for at 10+ years. It makes my stomach turn around when it's single use. What also disappoints me that these devices didn't seem to have tamper protection. How hard would it be to add an optic blocker at the COVID result port, so that the test will always read negative as it will never read a positive test line? Jigged electronic tests sounds perfect for some I suppose.
Really interesting video, thanks for sharing! I'm glad you addressed the E-waste aspect of this, it really is incredibly wasteful to throw away such a lot of perfectly good electronics after just a few minutes' use. I was disappointed at how much plastic was used in the Lateral Flow Test kits we have here in the UK, but this really takes the biscuit! It goes to show that environmental considerations are still far too low down on the list of considerations when we design things, and we all need to take a bit more responsibility when we are designing new products.
This product somehow beautifully summarizes the craziness of this year! It has it all, COVID, the cloud (no "AI" though 😟), chip shortage and privacy concerns. Amazing 😂
Then it needs to be stored in a blockchain somewhere to prove you haven't faked the results. And of course there needs to be some subscription element attached :)
So it connects to your phone and then your phone uploads the result, the physical location, your phone number, the contents of your all your contacts at a guess. This single use product is all about harvesting data. It is probably optimal for what it is designed to do.
@@itsevilbert Exactly. I installed the LinkedIn app and for years using the contacts that it stole from my phone it has been suggesting links to friends and former colleagues that have passed away. That was the last time I installed and apps on my phone. The phone is bad enough as it is without adding more cancer to the pot.
For some reason I'm more upset about the idea of throwing out the 2032 lithium cell after 30 seconds of use then I am about the idea of throwing out the very carefully photo-lithographically etched plastic-packaged (and potentially rare- thanks chip shortage) pieces of silicon. The idea that the entire device is disposable just sits wrong- at least diabetic testing uses separate disposable strips and long-lived tester. EDIT: For those curious, it looks like Walmart would sell these for ~26$ each, battery is actually used for 15 minutes, and the advertised use is for domestic/international travel. So, the use case is more having an electronic record that a test was taken+when, rather then answering the question "Do I / my family have COVID". Which... that's a little more forgivable, but it does go back to "couldn't y'all make the strips replacable, and just pack 5 strips in a box/sell-refills?" Also, the marketing mentions that it's approved for a "single test", where as most other test strips require second test a few days after a negative. I'd be curious if the LED processing isn't tied to that- say seeing an effect that's difficult to witness outside controlled conditions.
If its approved for a single test that might explain the false positives TSP got. To get that approval they would likely have to have raised the sensitivity of the test quite a lot.
My only guess is that oh so precious consumer data being phoned home the first chance the thing gets. Edit: under the cover of it being a handy easy to read interface.
I’m not a fan of single use products. But it’s cool nonetheless…curious why they had to have that much electronics just to tell you that there’s 2 lines present.
This one gives the wrong result which obviously undermines the usefulness - but for pregnancy tests, electronic ones produce a very consistent interpretation if (e.g.) one of the two lines is very faint. It'll also keep track of time, if the test result becomes valid after 20 minutes then invalid again after 60 minutes.
@@michaeljtandy adding to the line of electronic pregnancy tests: the consisent interpretation helps with people who might be in panic, or have difficulty seeing or completely blind! Sadly those electronic pregnancy tests aren't always marketed for the features you mentioned and often are pusheb because they're lying about it "being more accurate" or pushed towards people who would be 100% fine with a regular test...
Indeed, put a QR code on those basic ones and it will be as good as digital with some image recognition. Maybe scan twice - before and after use - to ensure the time of use.
you're kidding, right? all those components, plastics, optics, and even a microcontroller to read 2 blue lines visible with the bare eye? what a massive unjustifiable waste
Didn't know electronic strip tests exist but I'm at least glad that the comment section is as repulsed as I am. ...no way I would install an app just to get result of a test, rather take it apart and check for myself.
Just came to comment, like (good so) so many others, how disgusting I find doing that completely unnecessary BT thing. It is easier and better just without the BT. There is literally no advantage from it. Just making land fill garbage!
Im 90% sure i have purchased that exact same clear plastic lens set before for use in a custom encoder one one hand, pointlessly IoT on the other hand, covid test with a free unobtainable NRF chip
If these have been recalled, then there should be a ton of them that might be available cheap for reprogramming and turning into something useful. OK comment section -- instead of whining about the waste -- what would you turn these into?
electronic pregnancy tests are the same. They are literally just a normal pregnancy test with a LED and photo detector to read the lines and then give you a digital output. Talk about complication for the sake of complication...
The apparent reason for the electronics is to provide reasonably secure documentation of a negative test result as required for some air travel or by some schools and businesses. Of course, this is arguably not necessary and quite wasteful for home testing in many cases. Also, perhaps the sensors are better at reading the strips than the human eye so that a single test is sufficient. (I'm ignoring whatever problem led to the recall.) The competing Abbott BinaxNOW test requires a second test between 36 and 72 hours after a first test if the first test is negative.
But how you can ensure that the results are based on The one person sample not another person? The producer should be fined for introducing waste to the enviroment and obliged to collect all used ones.
@@aktik6000 I don't like the waste, and I'm not defending the system, just offering some explanation. I don't know all the details, but the manufacturer offers an optional video observation service using a smartphone that provides evidence that the results are from the user's own sample.
Just out of curiosity, did you by any chance check if the bands are fluorescent? Often times antibodies are fluorescently labeled and it might make slightly more sense to detect a fluorescent signal in this kind of getup.
Why would any manufacturer think this is a good idea? Why is it even economical to produce something like this? It can only be economical when it actually gets bought. But why does it get bought... how do they market this as being better than just a regular rapid antigen test? I am so confused. Something like this shouldn't be allowed to exist.
Aside from the amount of eWaste for no good purpose, it’s astonishing to ponder what the BOM cost of those electronics are! Even in quantities of 7,000, the nRF52810 is almost $2 per chip on Digi-Key (in QFN packaging, not QFP). It’s ridiculous to design this much hardware for essentially no purpose, and I agree that there’s nothing this does better than a test strip with a QR code on it.
It would be interesting to trace out the PCB traces to find out the exact path. Not of the current, but the $$$! It is all about the $$$. Unfortunately there are millions of people who would rather trust their phone App than their own eyes, because if it is on their phone, it is "official" and must be true (and more reliable and accurate because: "Digital", "Bluetooth", "Technology", "Science"...). Who are these people? Well, you can always find a bunch of them in lines around a store when a new phone model is about to ship.
I would guess the blue LED's are to stimulate emission from the wave of chemicals moving forward, as the blue light excites the test strip chemicals to fluoresce, so you have a pair of points, where you both detect that fluid of enough quantity has been placed, and that it is reacting as it travels down the capillary tube in the device. The time to travel from detection of first glow till second glow then can be used to calculate the wait time before doing the sense, as they have no real way to tell when the user has put sample in otherwise. No real amplification, just an antigen protein held in place, that reacts with a specific protein in the sample, and a separate set of antigens that react with something that will be in the sample in any case, like amylase, so that when the second reaction has shown a positive result, the first one is complete enough to tell if the test protein is there in enough volume. Very likely the test is looking for the antibody protein, so immunised people will show up as positive for the antigen, which is why the test is now unreliable, as it will trigger on those who have had, or who are currently infected, while only being able to reliably tell those who are not immunised apart. You could make a reusable machine, just swap out the optical detection to resistance or conductivity, using the same chemical paths that glucose monitors use, where you have a disposable test strip. Same detection methods as used there, where the original versions were human read optical tests, but all went to electronic. You might need the first generation or two to have a EEPROM to provide calibration constants for the particular batch, but the current technology has enough stability in manufacture that they simply laser trim the trips after manufacture to get the last tiny variation out, as the process has been refined and made repeatable.
Definitely an interesting device, thanks for sharing! Surprised how many people immediately dismiss these as nothing but e-waste. I get that this could certainly be done in a more eco friendly way, but that adds complexity for users, who may struggle with this kind of thing. I think a very clear "positive/negative" result is very valuable in applications like this. I've had ambiguous results off the analog test strips, and it's pretty scary not knowing if you have it or not! Of course, the accuracy of these particular test strips does raise plenty of questions...
you still would have to mix the samples and drip them into the device, only difference is this one is electronic and the others are not. you can still read the information. that difference still does not justify this device.
This explains the Nordic N52810 chip shortage for a bit and why these may be the prioritized part and have already returned on stock... Such a bloody waste. Someone should be fired.
@@yaghiyahbrenner8902 Already designed with it and it is immensly powerfull, but the stupid tools can't even program the two cores in the right order to not fail.
Before I watch this, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just a lateral flow test with a digital sensor similar to a digital pregnancy test, but at 10 times the price of the ‘free’ LFT ones here in 🇬🇧
False positives can be as bad as false negatives, not by spreading covid but by spreading fear and disruption. Over here in the UK we had what was called the pingdemic where people with the covid tracking app on their phones were getting pinged that they had been in contact with someone with covid and had to isolate for ten days, ended up with half the country self isolating at one point. I tried one of the bluetooth testing apps on my phone and at one point in a traffic jam had five unknown blue tooth signals showing on my phone.
Creative solutions, but not so environmental friendly, research on such stuff is also huge to make it reliable product, it is better to put money to make better vaccin.
Thanks for the video, I actually tried to use this test kit today, but when I connected it to my phone it told me it was expired. So I unpacked it and it was pretty simple. I swabbed my nose as instructed and dripped some extract onto the test strip and got a blue bar, I guess I'm not infected, right? I can understand why they made it like this and claim that the test results are more accurate, after all, people with visual impairments also need to be tested. However, how people with visual impairments can read their help videos and how to align the drip port is a problem they need to solve.
Excellent use of semiconductors during a global chip shortage, they'd otherwise just go into a phone (5-7 year lifespan), a PC (~10 year lifespan) or a car (20+ year lifespan) if they didn't go into this single-use waste of resources.
One day Acorn Computers Ltd created the ARM chip and put it into their awesome Archimedes computers that ran RISC OS only to find later the chip used in single use COVID tests with less use than the computer’s mouse 😩
It is reminiscent of those digital pregnancy tests that tell you on a display what you could see on a line with your own eyes. Aside from that, it's just an epic amount of overkill for a disposable biohazardous test that only needs receptacle and a piece of blotter paper. People also have an obvious incentive to subvert the test especially if it were permissible to use for employment / travel purposes.
okay, i was just gonna say, that those BinaxNow tests look like a great design, for not being encased in plastic .. then i saw, that the bloody things cost 20 bucks pop.
@@nerddub The nRF52810 has a 64MHz ARM Cortex-M4 CPU, which is plenty fast... But 192 KB Flash + 24 KB RAM aren't enough. It also has no display and no keyboard/mouse. So the Answer is: No, it won't run DooM (and what is crysis?;)). But the nRF52810 has a lot of digital interfaces, SPI, TWI and a bunch of GPIO. So you could install a display and maybe some input devices, maybe a bit of flash and some external ram and then someone might get DooM running. There is STM32Doom, which runs on a STM32F429 (also ARM Cortex-M4) with 8MB external RAM and the /doom/doom1.wad file via USB-OTG ;)
there should be a law preventing this kind of waste... meaning, just look at the amount of plastic, pcb, leds and even an ic, plus a battery which shouldn't be thrown away with normal trash - and all of this for A SINGLE USE! all that talk about sustainability, recycling, carbon neutrality and then there are things like these... they could have perhaps made it so the test strip is removable and you could recharge it for another test, still huge waste of resources, I'm guessing someone used up a government grant to produce these, else it just makes no sense at all
Great video. Very interesting. For visually impaired people it may be ok, i'm not sure if it was designed with them in mind. For everyone else a normal test + a 15 min. times will do the same thing at a fraction of the waste.
@@skrimper I see your point and its valid, but that product is wasteful as hell. Also its slower to use than the regular test, since you have to pare it and probably use an app or something.
I think the point of this device despite the wastefulness is to have a way of preventing tampering of the results. E.g. Fly in fly out workers sending their results to the company before flying into a mining site But at the same time, could have still kept the electronics and the strip separate and prevent tampering via an IC on the strip itself.
As for preventing tampering of the device... could we perhaps remove the need for electronics by having multiple possible slots that randomly lights so you know its authentic? (e.g. Three slots that can either light up or not to authenticate that the results is not tampered with) The smartphone app can then scan the slots and send the code to the company database to check authenticity of the device.
Like so many things... "How can we make this more expensive and have an excuse to justify it?" Insulin instantly comes to mind as another but the "philosophy" is everywhere.
Much like others in the comments section I thought "Hang on, that SoC is such a waste in that", but it turns out it is useful for no more than a cheap mouse or an expensive smart remote control, so for that I applaud them, otherwise, the device seems a terrible waste.
I am wondering how to read the stripe. I used water to do a control test and i get two blue lines ……… so two blue lines are negative? This design is just a waste of time … money … resources
People like electronic gadgets and I think trust technology more than the simple tests, but more isn't always better apart from the more money made by the manufacturers they love that kinda more...
I was thinking what exactly wrong with it... EVERYTHING is. Only actual reason for something like this to exist is make sure they know when you got positive result
That optical element looks (to my untrained eye) very similar to what you find in commercial smoke detectors (LED, photodiode, plastic lenses, black surround). I think a lot of engineering knowledge was reused there, which is nice that they didn't reinvent the wheel. Other than what other commenters have pointed out, one possible reason for such a device is to make it more difficult to fake the result. If you photograph a detector, you can easily edit it with a photo editor before uploading it to a verification service. Even with a QR-code serial number on the back of a normal one would not help as you can paste the result section from another device. Of course this is equally possible with this device, but it's harder for your average person to fake. You may also be able to have intrusion detection to invalidate the result.
As long as the test is not administered by a trusted third party, kids in UK have found common household substances to trigger all possible line combinations, so all the electronics are moot.
@@barbudoru a traveler to the UK told me last week he could have easily just done his compulsory self-test on a dog - I didn’t even think about the kids wanting a few days off school. Some of the self testing services do ensure someone will watch you do the test properly via a video call.
@@jimmy21584 video supervision would help, but the lack of depth information in video could be exploited quite easily to swap samples or otherwise interfere with the test.
There is a lot of interesting things in the design itself, but the business case of single use it what makes the device a shame. I do not think it would have been difficult to make it a way the it uses an external strip, maybe with an rftag for the cloud/BT thingy, but making the whole device a single use thing, adding more unnecessary waste not good, shame this manufacturer. I wonder if they at least used lead free solder, it would be a nice test to see how low this manufacturer went.
If they would have mede electronic version as they are making blood sugar meters with single use strips, it would have made sense. device is multi use, with reaction strip one use. this is huge waste now
