

MobilECG - WestCoastJustin
http://mobilecg.hu/

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woodylondon
This is amazing, and it's so frustrating that you have not got all your
funding.

I am Male, 38, a geek and overweight. In the last few years started having
heart issues and had many 7 day event monitors. However, never managed to
capture what my issue was. Each 7 day event monitor cost my medical insurance
£3k! (In the UK). I spent hours on google researching and understanding
arrhythmia. Most are benign, but not all.

What most people don't know is that an ECG machine or event monitor is all
well and good, but for a lot of problems it needs to be attached when you have
the incident. I have only had 5 incidents in 3 years. They could be harmless
or they cloud kill me, but until you find out what they are its impossible to
tell.

If this was on the market I would buy it, anyone that has had heart issues
would know how important something like this is to get built and delivered
into the market. The problem is, most people won't know they need this until
later in life if at all.

Don't give up, please get this to market devices like this will save lives or
at the very least reduce anxiety of people going through their first heart
health issues to get a diagnosis of the problem.

Good luck!

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tibbon
I too had a reason to wear an event monitor and the things were expensive,
silly, poorly thought out and just poorly made. Thousands of dollars for
something that has to phone home using a land line?

I asked the doctor why there wasn't something cheaper that did this better. He
had no idea. How companies can charge this much for simple devices is beyond
me. They aren't that complex...

~~~
vacri
There is a lot of money in cardiology. Cardiology has a lot of patients that
are older and wealthier. Cardiology and cancer get a lot of research grants,
because the people who control the purse strings are older, wealthier folks.

Conversely, there is hardly any money in mental illness. Mental illness has a
lot of patients that are younger and impoverished.

Anyway, making medical equipment isn't something that's just one step above a
breadboard. Have a look at the article again - to get the regulatory stamps,
for someone who's willing to sell at zero profit, will take $230k. For one
product. Throw a lot of infrastructure around that, and it's easy to see how
medical hardware costs a lot. Especially given that it's generally pretty low
turnover. Sure, there's a nice amount of fat in there, but you get that in
industries with a high barrier to entry.

~~~
kakoni
Oh this reminds of recent startup-conf, where health was(or should I say is)
the next big thing. Premium-VC investor on stage was saying that if the
product is regulated(=medical device classification) then they are not
interested.

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Yetanfou
This is something along the lines of which I've been thinking about, only my
target would be ultrasonic imaging instead of ECG. A USB-connected gizmo to go
between a probe and a display device, the latter being anything from a phone
through a PC to a head-mounted display (yes, something along the lines of
Google's latest toy). While you would still need to buy expensive probes, the
processing and display infrastructure would be infinitely more flexible than
what is currently available. My first target market would be veterinarian
applications but I see no reason why the same design would not be used for
human or industrial targets.

~~~
marquis
High prices for equipment like this (over $7k I read somewhere)
[http://www.mobisante.com/](http://www.mobisante.com/)

There's a less expensive thermal imager in development at
[http://muoptics.com](http://muoptics.com), so I don't see why the principles
can't be applied. Cheaper devices can only mean better health for all.

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JshWright
I'm not sure I see the value in this...

It's a highly portable version of a very specialized diagnostic tool.

If you're using the 12-lead by itself, you don't care about portability (as
you're in a doctor's office or hospital). A 12-lead on a wheeled cart is just
fine.

If you're using the 12-lead in a situation where portability matters (i.e. the
back of an ambulance), then you need a lot more than just a 12-lead. You need
something like a Lifepack 15, which combines an ECG with all sorts of other
monitoring equipment (auto blood pressure cuff, pulseox, capnography,
defibrillation capabilities, etc). An LP15 is not cheap (a mid-level version
costs _5_ times as much as the last used car I bought), but it does what it
does very well, and packs a lot into a small package.

Of all the factors considered by people who purchase things like 12-lead ECGs,
price is often well down on that list.

All that being said... Would I buy one for $110? In a heartbeat.

~~~
derefr
I don't know if the point of this is quite _medical_. The words "recreational
electrocardiograph usage" don't make sense _right now_ \-- but they might,
given a $110 one you can throw into a junk drawer when you're not using it.

~~~
girvo
There was an interesting post on Reddit, about a user who used a Raspberry Pi,
a heart monitor, and vibrators to create a sex toy that reacted to his wife's
arousal. Whether or not it was true, it's an interesting idea.

An ECG is a step beyond that, but I can see it being super cool to play with,
and who knows what sort of ideas you could come up with! I know at this price,
I'll definitely get one.

~~~
j_s
An Arduino project:

[http://scanlime.org/2012/11/hacking-my-
vagina/](http://scanlime.org/2012/11/hacking-my-vagina/)

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bayesianhorse
While this device looks awesome and would be really helpful, I don't think the
fund raising strategy will work out. Especially not the goal for
certification. And without certification, it's essentially useless for human
medicine.

What might work is approaching charities eager to develop this device for use
in the developing world.

~~~
flyinglizard
On the contrary, if he only sells to end users, I don't see the need for the
long and expensive certification (especially as he is based outside of the
USA). This is not intended - I hope - to replace hospital ECG machines, but
rather to provide quick insight at home.

I think it would serve the purpose better if he uses this money to make it
user friendly and polished.

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Brakenshire
It seems a little like you guys have the technical skills, but not necessarily
the connections necessary to get this going. You should really take the
proposal to at least the major heart charities in America, Canada and Britain,
and elsewhere in Europe if you have the languages. I also think you should go
after big-hitting academic/medical endorsements, in particular I'd make a
strong attempt to get in touch with Eric Topol, who is both a cardiologist and
interested in this kind of technology. If it's as good as it seems to be, you
must surely be able to get this off the ground.

