• Source:JND
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JE Technology Desk: A smartphone has evolved into more than a communication device. It can act as your entertainment partner, help you connect with your loved ones, squeeze the world of the Internet in a pocketable size and more. And what if we freshly announce it can act as your famous temperature sensing device, the thermometer?

According to IANS, a team of scientists (that includes an Indian-origin professor) developed an app called FeverPhone that uses the touchscreen and the battery temperature sensors of a phone to collect estimates that are used by a machine learning (ML) model to calculate the body temperatures.

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Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) made this app that requires no additional hardware to fetch results. The app estimates core body temperatures from the current phone sensors. It was tested on 37 patients, and the preliminary results were promising. However, it requires more data for wider public use by physicians, as per the research study.

These researchers used data from different trials to prepare the model and infer a correct value. Here's how it works.

FeverPhone App: How it works?

FeverPhone uses a sensor that determines the battery heat of the phone. The app times the duration at which the phone heats up and then identifies the amount that dissipates from the human body.

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The involved participants hold the phone like a point-and-shoot camera without touching the back of the phone. Then the touch screen is pressed against the foreheads of these members for about 90 seconds. This is the ideal length to generate results.

FeverPhone App: Accuracy

According to IANS, the average error rate of the app is 0.23 degree Celsius. It falls in the clinically acceptance range.

Meanwhile, because the app is undergoing testing, it is not out for public release on any of the big app markets, such as Google Play Store or Apple App Store. But the release would have to be followed by medical clearances to help a wider audience and become a reliable tool for body temperature sensing.