Wristband to detect coronavirus? IIT Madras startup raises Rs 22 crore for development of product

The wristband, developed by Muse Wearables, will be Bluetooth-enabled and can be connected to the smartphone via the Muse Health App

An IIT Madras incubated startup, Muse Wearables has raised Rs 22 crore to develop a wristband that can detect coronavirus symptoms at an early stage. This wristband will be priced at Rs 3,500 and will be available for consumers across 70 countries by August. This wearable tracker has sensors for skin temperature, heart rate and SpO2 or blood oxygen saturation. These sensors can continuously track these vitals remotely to enable early diagnosis of COVID-19 symptoms.

"We are targeting two lakh product sales this year with plans to achieve 10 lakh product sales by 2022 across the world. The investors believe in our innovations and believe that we can create a huge difference in the consumer tech space and we have been able to generate funding of Rs 22 crore", PTI quoted KLN Sai Prasanth, an IIT Madras alumni as saying.

The wristband, developed by Muse Wearables, will be Bluetooth-enabled and can be connected to the smartphone via the Muse Health App. User vitals and activity data are saved on the phone and the remote server.

Administrative access is also provided for centralised monitoring of people living in containment zones for coronavirus symptoms. Additionally, the app can get alerts from the Aarogya Setu app and notify the users as soon as they enter a coronavirus hotspot or a containment zone.

Users can also raise an emergency alert (SoS) when faced with any difficulty, body temperature rises above the desired threshold, SpO2 levels go too low, and when they enter a containment zone.

Also read: Phase-1 human clinical trial of India's potential COVID-19 vaccine begins at AIIMS