During the past few years, we’ve written about a variety of contact-free digital health screening and diagnostic technologies. For example, earlier this year we wrote about Donisi’s FDA de novo clearance for its contact-free medical grade multiparameter biometric measurement system. Donisi’s system simultaneously detects heart rate variability, stress, heart electrical activity with a single lead ECG, respiratory rhythm, and pulmonary congestion. We’ve also written about non-contact tech that monitors a single factor, such as the EarlySense respiratory depression sensor.
MX Labs recently announced Shen.AI: a contact-free AI-driven platform and app that combines several digital technologies to detect disease and changes in health. The MX Labs design uses smartphone video, computer vision, remote photoplethysmography (rPPG), and the Shen.AI platform. This is a new combination for us and MX Labs’ explanation sounds logical.
The app uses the smartphone camera to take a short video of the patient’s face. The computer vision app first maps the face to a unique three-dimensional face-geometry mesh. Next the computer vision tech pulls data patterns from the skin, eyes, and other features, including tiny movements of the whole head and individual muscles. Shen.AI next employs rPPG to gather heart activity data and vital signs. According to the company news release, the rPPG implementation measures blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability. The system also assesses skin condition. The MX Labs app then analyzes the collected data to make a preliminary diagnosis, if called for. The app also provides recommended next steps.
MX Labs plans to make the Shen.AI platform available to app developers and hardware manufacturers as a software development kit. MX Labs intends to develop additional contact-free smartphone apps to monitor various biometrics. It will be interesting to observe the progress and implementation of non-contact health-monitoring apps as MX Labs and other companies in the space continue to develop the technologies.
