
SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All - svermigo
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/903107259/scio-your-sixth-sense-a-pocket-molecular-sensor-fo?ref=discovery
======
rjdagost
For several years I worked in spectroscopy. It's REALLY tough to take a sensor
out of a controlled lab and into the uncontrolled real world and get clear,
unambiguous results like this video shows. Usually the absorption signal
you're trying to measure is tiny compared to changes due to background
fluctuations, etc. Things tend to only work well for special types of
materials that have very distinct absorption properties. There are massive
unknowns here and I would never fund them unless they opened up about what
spectroscopic technique they're using.

~~~
bhouston
I wrote this elsewhere in this comment section but it is directly relevant to
your sentence.

It is probably very similar to how Ubisoft made Just Dance using the Wii
controller. The Wii controller was really horrible in terms of what you could
read from it (it had no clue what your body position was), but if you stored
what measurements you got from people dancing properly you could score people
against that. Basically there was enough degrees of freedom to identify decent
dancing to a degree and if you hid what was actually going on people though it
sort of worked. Although the Wii-based Just Dance is horrible compared to the
XBox version that used the Kinetic.

The key is to hide the intermediate results and profile a lot of things using
the same crap sensor and then do fuzzy matching between the bad results. This
works if there is enough discernible degrees of freedom.

------
refurb
Some thoughts from an organic chemist who has a decent amount of experience
using IR spectroscopy.

\- IR spectroscopy is _one_ of several methods used _together_ to determine
the structure of a molecule. It's certainly not definitive by itself.

\- Some functional groups in molecules will give very specific signals (1700
cm^-1 for carbonyl functional groups, C=O), but for a lot of other functional
groups, you get very weak signals that can sometimes be hard to distinguish

\- IR works pretty good for pure compounds, but when you start to measure
mixtures, the overlapping signals can get very difficult to isolate and
identify

\- As rjdagost mentioned, taking a sensor out of the lab will lead to all
sorts of issues. Any stray light will likely cause any readings to look like
garbage

I could see this technology being useful to identify different types of
plastic. You have a limited universe of possible materials along with some
pretty specific functional groups that are either there or not.

To use it as a "molecule sensor for all", seems a big problem to try and
tackle.

And how the hell does it determine the ripeness of a avocado through the skin?

~~~
ihnorton
If your only exposure is analytical lab work (where by definition the work is
difficult), you may not be familiar with the breadth of field utility of near-
IR.

Some application examples:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7699186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7699186)

> And how the hell does it determine the ripeness of a avocado through the
> skin?

eg:
[http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-347.pdf](http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-347.pdf)
and
[http://www.aseanfood.info/Articles/13004404.pdf](http://www.aseanfood.info/Articles/13004404.pdf)

[edit: removed LMGTFY link - sorry, that was rude. But please don't pull the
expert card outside your area of expertise: NIR has been used to assess fruit
ripeness for _decades_ ]

~~~
refurb
_The optical and internal quality data were then merged and a PLS regression
analysis was conducted using the NSAS software package (NSAS, 1990)._

My comment wasn't that you couldn't test the ripeness of fruit using near-IR,
it was that you could reliably doing it using a handheld consumer product.

There is a BIG difference between running a lab analysis using near-IR and
making a consumer friendly product that can accurately produce the same data.

~~~
ihnorton
There are multiple manufacturers making NIR-based fruit quality sensors used
quite far from laboratory conditions, as well as portable NIR sensors.

(See my other comments in this thread)

~~~
refurb
By "lab setting" I mean someone who can run controls, and do the statistical
analysis to arrive a decent data, not just portable equipment.

I guess if they are willing to measure ripeness with a margin of error of
+/-50%, that'll work.

~~~
CamperBob2
+/\- 50% wouldn't work in a consumer setting, but +/\- 5% would work great. If
you're in a lab, +/\- 5% might be a disaster.

------
sytelus
There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I
would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be
public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route
which would be very difficult.

They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of
materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder.

Also why are they running $200K campaign? It seems they already have
significant staff and $200K would be peanuts as a goal.

~~~
ogoldberg
I managed to come upon a couple interesting pertinent articles. One about
other, similar Kickstarter projects that turned out to be scammy[1]. And
another article, written by the same journalist about scio[2].

[1] [http://pando.com/2014/04/04/revealed-healbe-isnt-
indiegogos-...](http://pando.com/2014/04/04/revealed-healbe-isnt-indiegogos-
first-giant-medical-scam/)

[2] [http://pando.com/2014/04/30/consumer-physics-kickstarter-
cam...](http://pando.com/2014/04/30/consumer-physics-kickstarter-campaign-
shows-that-not-all-crowd-funding-has-to-be-a-dishonest-mystery/)

~~~
sudont
Hopefully it wasn't a "Clever Hans" type of demonstration for the second one.
IE, someone watching on camera and then manually entering data into the
interface from a different room.

------
ars
Very cool idea, but I hate that it must have data connectivity to work. Not
only that, they won't actually give users the raw scan results! You have to
transmit them and then get the analyzed results only.

Reality is that many such services inevitably go under, and then your device
is useless. Especially when the service is as compute intensive as this one
sounds.

~~~
djmdjm
It's very likely that the Bluetooth protocol will be reverse engineered very
shortly after launch anyway.

~~~
emm
Unfortunately this did not happen with most fitness trackers. There's no
successful reverse engineering of Fitbit's, Misfit's or Jawebone's Bluetooth
protocol yet. Although the user base and interest may be much higher than that
of spectrometers.

I joined the work on reverse engineering Fitbit's protocol but the encryption
isn't hacked yet.

------
alkimie2
I see a sort of structural flaw. They seem to be matching measurements against
known materials and then reporting that. But where is the utility? Figuring
out whether a pill is asprin or tylenol? I'd be interested in identifying
characteristic of -new- materials unknown to the database. That's where the
raw information is really crucial.

~~~
ryanjshaw
This seems like it could be pretty useful to, say, the blind. Also a great
educational tool, a notion which isn't just limited to children (one of the
primary drivers of change is consciousness raising -- e.g. a dieter monitoring
their food intake may find this tool useful).

------
zvikara
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668156)

~~~
dang
That discussion wasn't very extensive, and there have been several substantive
comments in this thread, so we won't bury it as a dupe.

------
InclinedPlane
Does anyone have an email address to contact them directly? I'm concerned this
might be a scam and I want to ask them a few in depth questions and I'd rather
not be forced to do that through kickstarter or twitter.

~~~
flyinglizard
Knowing the people behind this, I don't think it's a scam. They have a good
staff, so I think they are certainly trying to make this a reality. Are they
"hustling their MVP" in startup speak? Maybe, I don't know, I never saw the
product (nor did I ask to). Are these people scammers? Absolutely not, to the
best of my knowledge.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So if you know these people, why not give their e-mail address to
InclinedPlane? :).

@InclinedPlane, if you get any response from them I (and probably many other
HNers) would be interested in reading both the questions and the answers.

------
pjc50
Interesting that the first comments are slating this for being cloud-based; in
this particular case I think that's like slating Google for being cloud based.
The raw data will make sense to very few people without the very large
database of "known" things to match against. And that large database will be
continually updated as people try new things.

Having said that, I'm not sure who the target market really is. It's basically
a Cool Science Toy. Educational use? But in that case maybe it would be nice
to show the raw data just to give an impression of how it works.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The problem is not with being based on external database - the problem is with
that database being privately owned by startup, which is almost certain to
disappear within a year or three, at which point the device you bought will be
useless.

I'd personally be fine with cloud-based recognition if the database was open,
free to copy and host locally.

That, and also not giving access to raw data pretty much kills 90% of possible
uses for the devices, turning a cool piece of tech into another pretty much
worthless gizmo.

------
nowlnowl
Could be good for drugdealers. What pills are these? Do I need to water my
plants? Is this avocado "just right" for me...

~~~
cmyr
Could be very very good for drug _users_. Being able to find out 'what pills
are these' would dramatically change the nature of that marketplace, I think.

------
jacquesm
Taste and smell are already pretty good at this in the noisy background that
we live in. I'd really like to see how this works out in practice and if they
achieve any degree of accuracy. Labs are labs for a reason, it's to reduce the
number of variables you have to contend with while trying to read experimental
data from sensors.

------
aurora72
Looks like another cloud-dependent app.

~~~
refurb
I'm imagining it would have to be. A raw near-IR spectra isn't going to be
much use unless you can try and match it up with a database of near-IR spectra
of known materials.

------
BlakePetersen
If this can scan for carbs/sugars, this could be a real winner within the
Diabetic community. I would love to be able to eat out and be able to scan my
meal and know for sure how much insulin I should take.

Maybe this could even be used in conjunction with an insulin pump and some
sort of sensor to determine the amount of food consumed and, BAM, artificial
pancreas. (It's that easy! LOL)

------
ihnorton
Here are some links to background information, existing products, and
applications of the underlying technology. They could be exaggerating the
capabilities of their particular miniaturized sensor, but as far as I can tell
they are not making up any new science. Spectroscopy is useful and widely used
- but also occasionally oversold, so some skepticism is certainly warranted.
The concrete applications they cite have been previously demonstrated (links
below).

SCiO uses near-infrared spectroscopy (as clearly stated on the kickstarter
page: "How does SCiO work").

Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-
infrared_spectroscopy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-
infrared_spectroscopy) Scholarly review:
[http://www.odin.life.ku.dk/news_letters/Q2_Q3_2005/news001.p...](http://www.odin.life.ku.dk/news_letters/Q2_Q3_2005/news001.pdf)

There are products on the market that do what SCiO claims to do - in field
conditions, but generally with a larger form-factor, and at much greater cost.
For example:

[http://www.asdi.com/products/fieldspec-
spectroradiometers/ha...](http://www.asdi.com/products/fieldspec-
spectroradiometers/handheld-2-portable-spectroradiometer)

[http://www.jdsu.com/ProductLiterature/micronir1700-spectrome...](http://www.jdsu.com/ProductLiterature/micronir1700-spectrometer-
ds-co-ae.pdf)

[http://www.bruker.com/products/infrared-near-infrared-and-
ra...](http://www.bruker.com/products/infrared-near-infrared-and-raman-
spectroscopy/ft-ir-routine-spectrometers/mobile-ir/overview.html)

[http://www.ahurascientific.com/material-
verification/product...](http://www.ahurascientific.com/material-
verification/products/microphazirpc/)

Some NIR application examples:

Agriculture, plants and soil quality assessment:

[http://blog.cimmyt.org/pocket-sensors-for-precision-
agricult...](http://blog.cimmyt.org/pocket-sensors-for-precision-agriculture-
to-reach-ethiopian-farmers/)
[http://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2012/582028/](http://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2012/582028/)
[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf201468x](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf201468x)
[http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/2/1/290](http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/2/1/290)
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706112...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706112003412)

Agriculture, meat assessment:

[http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12161-013-9611-y#p...](http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12161-013-9611-y#page-1)

Drug molecular composition (and counterfeit detection):

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18703302](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18703302)
[http://irvinepharma.com/pdf/A_comparison_of_near_infrared_me...](http://irvinepharma.com/pdf/A_comparison_of_near_infrared_method_development_approaches_using_a_drug_product_on_different_spectrophotometers_and_chemometric_software_algorithms.pdf)
[http://www.americanpharmaceuticalreview.com/Featured-
Article...](http://www.americanpharmaceuticalreview.com/Featured-
Articles/37319-Near-Infrared-NIR-Spectral-Signature-Development-and-
Validation-for-Counterfeit-Drug-Detection-Using-Portable-Spectrometer/)

Material characterization:

[http://ssmon.chb.kth.se/vol17/1_Steiner.pdf](http://ssmon.chb.kth.se/vol17/1_Steiner.pdf)

Remote sensing for agriculture (only giving one example here, but this is a
huge field. look up "MODIS" or "terra and aqua satellite"):
[http://quantalab.ias.csic.es/pdf/130222_e-
Informa1832.pdf](http://quantalab.ias.csic.es/pdf/130222_e-Informa1832.pdf)

~~~
hershel
Since similar systems exist, only at a somewhat larger size, miniaturization
seems like reasonable option.

And according to [1] they're backed by khosla ventures, which s a highly
respectable VC firm. If that's true , that doesn't seem like scam.

[1][http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/29/scio-handheld-sensor-
can-d...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/29/scio-handheld-sensor-can-decipher-
the-chemical-makeup-of-food-pills-and-plants/)

------
warrenmar
You can build your own spectrometer following directions from Public Lab.
Their goal is to develop open-source tools for citizen science.

[http://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometer](http://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometer)

------
jessaustin
I'm not sure how it's a "sixth" sense. I already have a nose, so at most this
is just an augmentation of a sense I already have.

------
Istof
I wonder if it could tell you the level of bacteria to determine freshness for
example?

------
tomphoolery
Holy shit it's a tricorder.

~~~
unwind
This: [http://www.tricorderproject.org/](http://www.tricorderproject.org/) is
much closer to my idea of a "real" tricorder project.

Basically trying to combine as many sensors as possible in a handheld form
factor.

Also much more transparent as a project.

------
LukeB_UK
It says for all, but not everyone is going to want to shell out $300 for one
of these.

------
sidcool
My first reaction was : "That's amazing!!!". Indeed a very cool idea. A tiny
spectrometer. I would be very much interesting in the details of the
technology behind it and what kind of details it can find about the scanned
objects.

------
Zarkonnen
Hm, this is at best utterly misleading and at worst a scam.

~~~
dang
This is a bad HN comment, not because it's skeptical, but because it has no
substance.

An example of a much better comment expressing skepticism is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7697876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7697876).

~~~
Zarkonnen
Fair point. I was going to get my GF, who actually did spectroscopy and mass
spectroscopy as a job at one point, to pitch in. Will do so now.

------
roryhughes
Upvote if this reminds you of "The SmellMaster 9000" from Richie Rich.

