NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, March 10, 2014

You may already know Wello as a personal training web service we reviewed last year, but now a health-tracking gadget called Wello wants to pull a Facebook Paper and make you forget all about that other Wello. Oh, well. (Sorry.)

The new Wello, from tech company Azoi, looks like a smartphone case–because it is a smartphone case. But embedded in that case is a plate with sophisticated sensors that can detect your vital signs in less than 30 seconds–all you have to do is press a button on the side of the case, and then hold your smartphone.

Your fingers line up effortlessly with sensors on the back and top of the case. Those sensors gather data that the software algorithms can extrapolate to around 20 vital signs, including your heart rate, ECG, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, and temperature. “We do all of this with clinical accuracy,” Azoi CEO and founder Hamish Patel told TechHive. “It’s really the first of its kind.”