Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

This smart pill will tattle to your doctor if you don’t take your meds

Luke Dormehl
By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Have you ever been prescribed medication and then forgotten to take a dose and accidentally skipped it? It’s one thing if that’s a drug designed to treat a minor skin infection. But what if it’s something far more life-altering, like an antiretroviral drug used for treating HIV? In that case, defaulting on said drug could be profoundly dangerous. At the very least, it’s something your family physician would probably want to know about it.

Thanks to a new kind of smart pill, called ID-Cap, they very soon will be able to. Developed by the medical startup EtectRx, ID-Cap is an ingestible capsule and sensor system which can reveal when it’s been successfully taken by a patient. “There is well-documented medical research that patients are not as good as they should be as at taking their medicine; this is known as being non-adherent,” Harry Travis, president and CEO of EtectRx, told Digital Trends. “We believe our technology will, in some small way, help clinicians help their patients take their medicine.”

Recommended Videos

The system is comprised of three parts: the ID-Capsule, ID-Tag, and ID-Cap Reader, alongside a software layer which allows the data to be displayed for both patient and clinician. The ID-Capsule is a standard pharmaceutical capsule shell containing the ID-Tag ingestible sensor. This sensor emits a very low power radio frequency digital message from within the patient, which is sent to the ID-Cap Reader, a wearable device that verifies the message as a valid ingestion event. Finally, the information is transmitted, via Bluetooth LE, to data display systems utilized by clinicians and patients.

Related

EtectRx is currently waiting for official clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It hopes that this will be granted later this year. It is also the subject of a study being carried out in partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health.

This study will examine what impact the system could have on patients potentially adhering to HIV medication. That is crucial for reasons which go way beyond simply one patient. When it comes to a potentially deadly disease like HIV, being able to ensure that antiretrovirals are taken could help end the spread of HIV. What more could you want from a smart pill?

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Luke Dormehl
Luke Dormehl
Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
This gizmo tracks your TP usage and automatically orders more when you get low
homeplenish-splindle toilet paper holder

Smart home appliances have a tendency to border on solutions-for-nonexistent-problems territory, and no place is that more apparent than the CES show floor. This year is no different. Case in point: A smart toilet paper holder from a company called Homeplenish that keeps a tab on your usage and then  automatically orders more from your Amazon account when you’re about to run out.

Homeplenish says its device will prevent people from hoarding rolls as its algorithm can automatically predict when you’ll need more and order it on your behalf beforehand, unlike some alternatives that tend to buy replacements on a set schedule. Since the smart holder integrates with Amazon’s “Smart Reorder” platform, it also takes into account delivery times and calculates the ideal reorder time frame to ensure “there is never too much or too little towel and tissue on hand.”

Read more
The Home Connectivity Alliance wants to bring you the smart home of your dreams
A 55-inch Samsung The Frame 4K TV hangs on a wall in a dining room.

The interconnected nature of smart home technology has long been the subject of discussion, especially with regard to the "walled gardens" that sprang up around different platforms. Many opinion pieces (our own included) said that the smart home would never be truly "smart" until interoperability became commonplace. Today, a number of different companies came together to announce the launch of the Home Connectivity Alliance, an organization devoted to creating interoperable appliances within the home. This announcement might pale in comparison to CES 2022 launches of a massive new TV or a nifty new robot vacuum, but it's just as important.

The HCA is made up of American Standard Heating and Air Condition, Arcelik, The Electrolux Group, Haier, GE Appliances, Samsung Electronics, and Trane Residential. The presence of some of these companies comes as a surprise given their relatively low profile in the smart home market, but Samsung's membership is no surprise at all. Samsung has long been a proponent of Matter, another platform pushing for interconnectivity between devices.

Read more
Your Whirlpool smart oven can now act as an air fryer, too
The Whirlpool Smart Oven line is getting an air fry mode.

One of the major perks of smart home technology is that you don't necessarily have to buy a new appliance to get new features. Whirlpool made that all the more obvious at CES 2022 today when the company announced a software update coming to the Smart Slide-in Gas and Electric Ranges, as well as the Smart Single, Double, and Combination Wall Ovens through an "instant over-the-air upgrade." Imagine that: A software update that adds the functionality of a completely different appliance to something you already have.

The addition of the air fry functionality isn't all that Whirlpool smart ovens are getting, either. They'll soon be able to connect to the Yummly smart thermometer. This might seem like a minor update, but there's actually a lot of functionality packed into the smart thermometer, too. The thermometer's app has a lot of recipes packed in, and it can start preheating your oven based on which recipe you're using. The thermometer can connect to your smartphone from up to 150 feet away and can guide even the most inexperienced home cook toward a delicious finish. If you're not confident in the kitchen, the main thing to remember is that heat is your best friend and your worst enemy. Too much heat and you burn your dish, but too little and it comes out gross. A smart thermometer can help zero in that Goldilocks temperature.

Read more