
Digital pregnancy tests have an internal paper test - nsriv
https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1301707401024827392
======
leto_ii
Going over the conversation here I'm a bit surprised by how many people seem
to prefer an unnecessarily complicated and obfuscating solution to the
straight-forward one.

The Twitter thread clearly points out that the electronics serve strictly as
an intermediary layer between the paper test and the user. They just binarize
the paper reading. This in turn gives a false psychological sense of security
("it's the computer that says it, not me"), without any credible benefit.

Why should I trust the people who calibrated the electronic device more than
my own eyes?

More generally, why are people so eager to discount the reliability of their
own senses? You have eyes and a mind which are the product of billions of
years of evolutionary refinement. If you're not sure whether it's || or |+,
pee again on a different test and compare; or wait a few days. If the lighting
in your bathroom is bad, take the test in natural light or a better lit room.

My personal instinct is to rely first and foremost on my own mind and senses.
It's of course important to defer to expert knowledge, but we need to use our
critical thinking when deciding if something is the result of expert
knowledge, or simply a marketing gimmick.

~~~
davewritescode
I actually saw this last night and initially had the same reaction but had
some time to think on it. Remember, for a lot of people taking a pregnancy
test is incredibly stressful. Reducing the complexity of reading by outputting
a less ambiguous result has a lot of value to some people.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
But as a society, do we want to generate additional waste for a bit of comfort
?

~~~
captainredbeard
Society wants -- through its observed behavior -- that very much. Is it good
from an intellectual perspective? Likely not, though this is a very low impact
scenario compared to mass plastic convenience packaging for near daily use
items. YMMV.

------
0latency
Pregnancy/Motherhood groups are swarmed with the same "can you read this, I
think I see a faint line" \+ photo question every single day because of the
cheap tests. The strip results are NOT easy to interpret, because you may
still see a faint line on the paper when not pregnant, and it's kind of an
important emotional question as some couples have been trying to get pregnant
for years. Your OB does you a mercy if they tell you "just buy the digital
one".

~~~
wwn_se
Well yes but the digital test does not give your better info. They translate a
non binary result to a binary one.

What I did when "we" were doing these tests (got 2 types both paper stips, one
high sensitivity and one of the cheapest one) simply compare a unused strip
and the one with pee.

It's not hard and the manual in the ones I got were really good. Like color
pictures and lots of examples.

~~~
thebean11
They don't give you _more_ info, but I think you could argue it's better info.
Sometimes less is more, filtering noise is valuable.

------
Benjamin_Dobell
I'm not too sure why this is supposed to be surprising. When chemical
reactions are involved, you often need chemicals.

A significant portion of digital meters used for servicing swimming pools
require servicing/replacement of strips/chemicals (reagents) within the
device.

Yes, there are also digital meters that work without chemicals per se, and
have special electrodes that measure electric current. However, this approach
quite simply doesn't work for all chemical reactions.

~~~
Thorrez
It's surprising because the electronics are essentially useless. Most people
would expect the electronic version would have some type of advantage, because
those electronics cost extra money to produce.

~~~
mrtksn
The advantage is the UX.

On a regular stripe test you are responsible to conduct the experiment and
interpret the outcome which can be intimidating.

"Is there a line? I think I see a line? But it's fainter from the last time?
What does it mean?"

This is replaced by an algorithm that's written by people who know what are
they doing to save you from analysing a chemical reaction and have a straight
answer.

 __ _edit:_ __Just Google for "Is this pregnancy test positive" to see how
many people are having trouble interpreting the results.

Here is an example from Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TFABLinePorn/comments/4pxghm/confli...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TFABLinePorn/comments/4pxghm/conflicting_pregnancy_test_one_positive_faint/)

Ironically, on this example the commenters claim that the inaccurate one is
the digital one and the tester confirms. Anyway, the point stands: It is hard
to interpret the outcome of chemical reactions.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Your link actually shows you why there is no UX advantage.

OP is only two cycles into their pregnancy. A paper test can pick up on this
tiny HCG measurement and show something. A digital test cannot because it's
going to pick a higher threshold if it only wants to give you a binary result.
A digital test will tell you that you're pregnant when you're far enough along
for a paper test to be obvious.

There are so many "can someone interpret this paper test?" questions not
because paper is inferior but because they are trying to interpret results 0-2
months into their pregnancy and paper can actually give you a faint reading
here.

A digital test could support that by showing "possibly pregnant" which is back
to the same UX, and showing "not pregnant" during this time isn't much of a
win either.

~~~
mrtksn
A digital test can be tuned to a better sensitivity.

The UX advantage comes from giving a definitive answer. The answer can change
at later times when the body starts giving stronger signals. You can simply
indicate that you need to wait X number of days to detect the pregnancy and
problem solved.

This is much better UX than learning biology and chemistry to be able to read
a test result. What does a faint line means? Probably means you need 4 years
degree in a related field to have an educated guess. To have a definitive
answer you need a to have a career in it.

Realistically though, it means you will need to ask someone who already have
the degree, which means what good is the test for?

The digital test does guide you how to get to the right answer. Yes, if the
threshold is too high and you test too early it can give you a false negative
but this is a simple problem that can be solved by recommending a second test
in few days.

~~~
KONAir
It should just show the value and have the definition of them written on the
box, UI should not be a concern at all if you have to have electronics in this
case.

------
IndrekR
This kind of makes sense in a strange way. Inexpensive red LED's have
relatively narrow spectral line half width (~20nm) and you can set detection
thresholds against measured values. This is much better than "I think I saw
something in a dimly lit bathroom". This means that in the readout part (UI)
it is hard to get wrong results ("Is it one or two?").

Then again it is a wasteful and overpriced product that can leave wrong
impression of superiority to the customer.

~~~
jsymolon
> it is a wasteful

On one hand, what a marvelous thing it is. On the other, what a waste, single
use of silicon, battery and LCD that'll go straight to the landfill.

~~~
azinman2
And a lithium battery nevertheless! So so wasteful and toxic! I can’t believe
this is legal.

------
jsmith99
At the end of the teardown, after all those CPU datasheeets and speculation ,
my favourite was

[https://twitter.com/gparker/status/1301711548193230849](https://twitter.com/gparker/status/1301711548193230849)

@gparker: @DelMurice @Foone Congratulations! When is the endianness reveal
party?

------
csilverman
I saw the beginnings of this on Twitter last night; not surprised it wound up
here. If anyone here isn’t already following @foone, I highly recommend it.
Their teardowns are fascinating.

One of the more interesting comments:

“This thing [the chip in the device] is probably faster at number crunching
and basic I/O than the CPU used in the original IBM PC, and this one is in
something you pee on and throw away.”

(Unfortunately, “...there's no reprogramming this chip to run other programs.
We can't run Doom on this pregnancy tester, I'm sorry.”)

------
askvictor
While the waste is lamentable, perhaps it's also worth considering this as a
UI/UX problem. How many people mis-read the paper test vs how much extra error
% does the circuitry introduce?

~~~
blendergeek
Would it be possible to make a paper one have words (such as pregnant/not
pregnant) instead of one/two lines?

~~~
philips
Have an app that uses the phone camera?

~~~
pedrow
I suspect it is difficult to get the 'raw' output from a cell-phone camera so
you are dependent on the phone's processing (contrast enhancement etc), which
might vary between models. Not impossible (e.g. having control lines) but
needs thinking about.

------
timerol
"Pregnancy tests are 99% accurate in the lab, 75% accurate in the wild due to
misreads- mistakes which are highly dependent on education and socioeconomic
status. No, it is not stupid or wasteful to use a hardware interface to help
women with this."

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/130178603213683507...](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1301786032136835072)

~~~
srtjstjsj
That thread (by someone injecting racism) says nothing about the accuracy of
machine tests in the wild, nor whether the errors are false positive or false
negative.

------
dec0dedab0de
So It's basically like the blood sugar testers diabetics use, except they want
you to buy a new reader with every strip.

There is now an opportunity for one of the manufacturers of pregnancy tests to
make a reusable reader. The add could be like "We know you're going to test
more than once, we won't force you to buy a reader every time." or "instead of
asking the strangers if they see a line (cut to forum posts of tests) , let
{product name} be your second opinion" Or even "Don't wait until you've
missing your period, test every week for an entire year for less than the cost
of 3 of the competitors digital tests"

~~~
ashtonkem
Pregnancy tests and blood sugar tests have pretty different usage patterns.
Blood sugar tests will (should) be used every day by diabetics; the cost per
test matters a lot. Women on the other hand go through pregnancy tests much
less frequently, and care much more about accuracy than cost. The impact of a
false positive or negative from a pregnancy test can be _massive_ , and even
the perception of increased accuracy is good marketing.

------
elliebike
The issue here is that paper tests require the user to read and properly
understand instructions. Teenagers in a panic can and will misread and
misunderstand, as people often do when under duress.

It may seem "pointless", but making the tests more user friendly and less
prone to user error is super important.

~~~
lightlyused
I wouldn't say super important. I'll probably get down voted for my opinion,
but if we had proper sex education for everyone and valued women's health care
than this wouldn't be an issue.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I don't think that sex education and accessible abortions stops people from
being emotionally invested in finding out if they are pregnant. This can be a
stressful question whether you want a child, don't want a child, or don't
know!

~~~
lightlyused
Teenagers were specifically mentioned in the comment. Good sex education helps
because reproduction is now not some mysterious process. They will then be
able to make good choices when they decide to sex. Having access to abortion
services helps because having sex shouldn't ruin someones life.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I don't think that anyone was arguing those points. simply that they wont
eliminate the stress associated with test taking, which is the purpose of this
device.

------
tobinfricke
I like the part where it uses the conductivity of pee as the power switch.

[https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1301709777383292928/photo/1](https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1301709777383292928/photo/1)

~~~
tobinfricke
I also like the part that it has as much CPU power as the original IBM PC but
it's literally something you pee on and then throw away!

~~~
runbyfruity
And then it sits in a landfill for eternity! Imagine how many millions of tiny
computers (and batteries - oof) are just sitting in dumps right now. That's
the most egregious part for me: this test is exactly the same as the analog
one, but it generates eWaste.

~~~
titzer
If there is an engineer afterlife, then we got some serious hell to pay for
how wasteful we are collectively.

------
tobinfricke
People often have the idea that a digital readout implies a more precise
measurement. I see this often in scales, thermometers, etc.

~~~
sratner
It is often more precise, not necessarily more accurate. People often don't
distinguish between the two.

~~~
throwaway744678
Not a native speaker; I think I understand your point, though I fail to see a
distinction between these two words: if the output is a number to the nth
decimal, but it is not "accurate" (ie. the numbers are actually wrong), can it
still be said to be "precise" ?

~~~
74ls00
Precise means lots of fine-grained information; accurate means close to the
truth. If the weather is 20° exactly and one thermometer reads 20.2° and
another 20.562° the first can be described as more accurate and the latter as
more precise. Hence the expression, “precisely wrong”.

------
082349872349872
My 3rd world country has pregnancy tests[1] available in almost all vending
machines, but unfortunately they're the paper kind. Obviously we managed to
get them evenly distributed, but utterly failed to provide the future.

[1] For the convenience of both those hoping for positive results and those
hoping for negative. I'm guessing there are more of the latter than the
former, because they're invariably located in the slot next to the condoms.

~~~
bpiche
The street finds its own use for things eh

~~~
082349872349872
TIL Tally Isham doesn't have an insta but image search does turn up some of
her titles.

Thoughts from a not-as-fictional Rikki:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24349454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24349454)

------
superasn
Reminds me of that juicer which basically just squeezed a packet and costs
hundreds of dollars.

Thank god for hackers exposing these shenanigans!

~~~
Johnny555
What's the shenanigans? Lots of lab tests run on paper, the skill is in
interpreting the result.

~~~
superasn
> What's the shenanigans?

I think pricing a 20c device for $12, to trick people that since it's
digital/more expensive it is more accurate is the shenanigans.

~~~
Johnny555
I just checked on cvs.com, a 2 pack of CVS branded "blue line" style pregnancy
tests cost $13.99, a 2 pack of "clear blue" digital tests costs $17.79.

You can buy bulk strips for around 50 cents each, but many people would rather
pay for the convenience of peeing on a stick than peeing in a cup and them
dipping a test strip in it.

~~~
nelaboras
You could also pee straight on the paper.

~~~
Johnny555
Many people are squeamish enough about their own urine to not want to hold a
2" long test strip in the stream, a 6" plastic device gives more clearance.

But in any case, test strips vary in how they work - some require a couple
drops of urine in a specific spot on the strip, some say to dip in the urine
cup until a dye mark appears. Is holding the test strip in the stream going to
give the same result? I don't know.

------
mikewarot
So there we were... expecting a + or - on the test...

we got a vertical bar |

and a 2 day wait because we were in the middle of nowhere... Yellowstone.

Sproutlet is 14 now. 8)

------
philips
I wonder if there is an opportunity to make a mobile app that interpreted the
results from these tests in a similar manner and sell tests that are app
enabled.

~~~
saagarjha
Might as well charge 3x more since it's "wireless".

------
stuaxo
As pointed out on the twitter thread.

If a digital test is wanted, there's no reason it couldn't accept exactly the
kind of disposable strip it contains.

That way the part that is going to become ewaste could at least be re-usable.

~~~
underbluewaters
You'd have to make sure the diodes were exactly lined up with the strip in
order to avoid false negatives. That doesn't seem like a risk worth taking to
save a few bucks. Maybe some sort of cartridge system could be developed.

~~~
kortex
That's what the control strip is for. Use that for registration. What you
really care about is the relative intensities of the control and test.

------
blablablub
This is basically the definition of plastic waste.

~~~
1001101
And are people supposed to tear it down and dispose of the battery separately?
(the battery is hazardous and has markings indicating it is not to be thrown
away).

~~~
Cthulhu_
I'm confident that kinda thing happens at the waste processing plant. But
that's making assumptions about waste disposal.

~~~
MertsA
No one is digging through trash looking for tiny batteries embedded in
disposable electronics. The dump truck gets unloaded straight on top of a
landfill and bulldozers spread it around in the majority of the US.

------
uniqueid
Ouch, that's pathetic.

I've noticed companies that build medical devices have followed the lead of
big tech companies like Apple. First it was devices with non-replaceable
batteries, and now: subscription services.

It's crummy.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yup, or adding bluetooth and connect with an app just because they can then
charge a premium.

I mean it's a toothbrush, come on.

------
hidroto
still better then toads

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_test#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_test#History)

~~~
fortran77
Or rabbits! (I'm old enough to remember people joking by saying "the rabbit
died" to mean they have an unplanned pregnancy)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_test)

------
dusted
such a waste of resources

~~~
NavinF
Not your resources

~~~
pbhjpbhj
What do you mean? They're our resources collectively as Earth-dwellers.

------
oe
I didn't find it mentioned here or in the Twitter thread, but the digital test
also keeps track of previous results and alerts you when the scores are
ramping up. Of course you could do this manually by keeping all the strips and
comparing them but the device makes it a bit easier.

~~~
nelaboras
There might be some that can do this, but how would this version possibly be
able to do that if it only has one paper inside?

~~~
oe
Whoops I thought this was a digital ovulation test. They have multiple strips
and you test one each day.

------
tobyhinloopen
what did the guy expect to find inside? I didn’t expect otherwise. It’s just
that an excited or horrified human is really bad at reading faint lines.

The rule is (afaik) if you see the second line AT ALL, even if reaaally faint,
it’s time to get some bed rest because you’ll need it in a few months

------
Hitton
Idea: Make image recognition app that does the same. Market it as
environmentally friendly solution.

You are welcome.

------
moonbug
very much enjoying a bunch of men argue about how easy their pregnancy tests
were.

------
nathias
people can't believe others would use this, and go on using their GUIs instead
of terminals

------
BrianOnHN
Reminds me of this bic stick lighter image (yes, there's a disposable bic
lighter insider)
[https://i.imgur.com/3eGaQZT.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/3eGaQZT.jpg)

Edit: replace Reddit link.

~~~
swebs
Non-reddit link:
[https://i.imgur.com/3eGaQZT.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/3eGaQZT.jpg)

