
Cue – Discover yourself - cfontes
https://cue.me
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suprgeek
The concept itself is pretty exciting - A simple home based device capable of
providing some bio markers that indicate different conditions.

The science behind these - i.e. the correlation of said marker with the linked
condition is not as cut-and-dry but still within the bounds of usefulness.

The execution is something we will have to see - the many 3D renders are not
exactly promising

The Web site is an abomination - terrible scroll hijacking, Stock pictures of
Gross things, low info density, etc, etc

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jgv
Came here to say just this. Product could be interesting but their abomination
of a website is such a turn off.

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beeskneecaps
Now if they would only promise not to sell off your personal health data.

Call me skeptical, but there has to be some negative consequence for giving
this kind of personal info out in the future.

I imagine it being like, "Sorry sir, your health record indicates you were
sick 5 times last year. You're a health risk, so we can't hire you".

"Your elevated testosterone levels indicate that you'll be an overly-
aggressive employee.."

Anywho... Cool video, right?

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rmxt
My thoughts immediately strayed to the same notion. From the FAQ, however:

 _Your data will be stored on your phone, and you decide how long you want to
store your data, if at all. You are the only person that has access to your
data. You can choose to share the data with your doctor, your family, or your
friends. You are in control of your data, and how you use it is entirely up to
you.

As a first customer, you will be invited to take part in a usability study and
provide feedback and anonymized data to our company as an important part of
Cue’s path to FDA approval. You may opt out of this at any time._

And, with respect to selling:

 _Absolutely not. Your data belongs to you. Data collected using Cue machines
are linked to your smart phone solely. Again, you are the only person that has
access to your data._

Yes, yes, TOS and privacy policies can change at any time, but this is a quite
bit more forthright statement about data, than say the Microsoft
Band/Strava/Fitbit/etc. My reading of it is that it's never uploaded to any
sort of remote cloud storage.

EDIT: The more that I think about it, and the more features that I see that
the app has, I'd have to guess that there may be some sort of catch down the
line in the above statement. Perhaps your blood work data is never transferred
to their servers, but analytic gathering is probably going to take place based
on your location, meal planning, exercise records, etc., even if only for
"recommendations for you".

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tptacek
This seems... ambitious. The prospects for reliable home flu testing alone
seem challenging; for instance, here's WBUR reporting on an NSF-funded, CDC-
advised pilot to get home flu tests to Boston residents:

[http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/01/home-flu-test-
goviral](http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/01/home-flu-test-goviral)

The "good" version of the test requires an offsite lab.

Also: if you have a product that detects influenza and fertility, why lead off
your marketing with "inflammation" and recommendations for green smoothies?
It's hard to tell whether this is a serious product or something for people
who shop at GNC.

The founders have math backgrounds but no biotech pedigree, although they do
have a gold-plated advisor board.

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tenpoundhammer
I can’t imagine how this company won’t get sued out of existence. They are
making some pretty broad and probably inaccurate statements, and also offering
medical advice.

Detecting inflammation probably isn’t that hard, but I’d bet they are
detecting a particular marker of inflammation and reporting that as
inflammation. Which could be meaningful in combination with other factors, or
it could mean the person being tested has a cold, or ate a 12 inch Subway
Sandwich.

Also advising someone to drink a green smoothie may lower the particular
marker they are measuring, but probably won’t alleviate actual inflammation or
it’s related symptoms at all.

My wife has had a chronic inflammatory disease for years and has tried it all,
including smoothies, and has find even really powerful anti-inflammatory drugs
don’t cure the inflammation or remove all symptoms.

I do like the idea of the device and applications though, but I’m really
worried about the way they present information.

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at-fates-hands
A lot of this stuff seems rather obvious.

Vitamin D low? Pretty sure people know whether they should be more active. If
I'm sitting at a PC all day (like most developers) I know when my activity
levels are low, I don't need a machine to tell me that.

Inflammation? I've been an athlete my whole life, so I'm pretty tuned into my
body. If I have inflammation somewhere, and it's not sports related, I'll most
likely leave that to a trained professional, not some machine.

Influenza? See above. If I get really sick, I got to the doctor. Since there's
really no pill you can take to cure you of the flu (it's a virus), by the time
I'd check this machine, I'd be better off just seeing my doctor, which is most
likely a worst case scenario.

Testosterone? I'm an athlete by trade and have never had any issues with this.
I have a healthy diet and am still very active for my age. Not sure this would
help me other than to confirm I have normal levels; something I can find out
at my yearly physical if I really want to.

Fertility? Not even going to go there.

Basically if you're a couch potato, and have a shit diet, this might be
helpful to you. The vast majority of people I know who smoke and have a crappy
lifestyle and diet, they know it. It's just up to them to make the change. Not
sure this machine would get them to do that.

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cwkoss
Horrible website. I don't want to watch a video, and couldn't figure out what
it was from the text on the page.

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tjohns
This has shown up on HN before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7743036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7743036)

That said, "inflammation is elevated, recover with a green smoothie" seems
like questionable medical advice. I pretty much gave up on this right there.

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tedks
Their core competency is building sensor systems, not delivering medical
advice. If you know you're more inflamed, that's useful information in itself.

~~~
tptacek
In the thread I linked down downthread, a physician questioned the utility of
the inflammation marker they're testing.

~~~
tedks
That's a different criticism than that their medical advice is unsound.

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knappador
I'll just wait on Integrated Plasmonics to ship something. Cue might have fit
some market with existing tech, but it looks pretty niche. "Deep"
monitoring...and then testosterone. Wonderful. I'll know if lifting weights
really affects testosterone levels while completely missing that prostate
cancer on the way. We have deep testing. We don't have broad or cheap testing.
The fact that the tests aren't cheap, (fertility???) and the marketing strikes
me as pretending existing things are new makes me think this is investment
fodder. I didn't wake up today decided to be negative. The product gives me
signals that seem to betray a lack of sincerity in terms of delivering
anything with truly new value propositions.

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legohead
This page is a lot more clear about the product I think:
[https://cue.me/product](https://cue.me/product)

I still see no information on how long the "wand" (sample taker) lasts.. Can I
take 10 drops of blood? 100? Infinite?

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ultrafez
The sample wands and cartridges are single use - see the FAQ page:
[https://cue.me/faq](https://cue.me/faq)

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jonny_eh
Green smoothies? Gross.

Instead of stock photos of people running, it'd be great if they laid out the
specific features/sensors of this thing.

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tptacek
They claim:

* Inflammation

* Influenza

* Vitamin D

* Fertility

* Testosterone

It's unclear from the media photos on the front page, but this is something
that stays in your home, and accepts sample swabs for blood and spit (you buy
different swabs for different tests).

This was a really useful comment, linked from upthread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744251)

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fasteo
_A 5-pack of inflammation, vitamin D, fertility, or testosterone cartridges
costs $20 /pack. A 3-pack of flu cartridges costs $30._

Pricey

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VoiceOfWisdom
A private blood test that reports total serum testosterone costs between
50-100 dollars, and requires going into a lab to get blood drawn. If the cue
is accurate this it will be ridiculously better.

~~~
fasteo
That's true, but the motivations here are quite different. I wouldn't go to a
lab just to check if I am properly recovered from a workout [1] or to check if
the kids have the flu.

[1] that's assuming that a free testosterone test can tell you that.

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mbreese
There is something to be said for keeping track of your health, but with too
much monitoring (without an external reason), you're just generating too much
data and will end up with false positives. They need to make a much better
case for _why_ I would want to monitor these things...

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phmagic
All the people shown in the video didn't need cue. Why don't they show moms
with sick kids, the elderly, or those stricken with diseases?

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calebm
This looks awesome. It seems ridiculous that in the age of information, we
still need to go to labs to get our own basic vital information.

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innguest
While it's cute to think that way, the truth is you have the government to
blame for regulating medical equipment.

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jguimont
They even invented medication for the flu!

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ultrafez
I thought that was questionable too. Why was there a prescription to pick up
to treat a viral infection, which there is no treatment for?

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Domenic_S
orly?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amantadine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amantadine)

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JimA
I admit I LOL'd at the fertility test...

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djrogers
Why the LOL? Fertility tests are a perfectly valid and useful thing for those
struggling to get pregnant.

