There are mornings when you can tell you’re not feeling well just by looking in the mirror — but a new AI “mirror” debuting this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) promises to tell you much more .
The product (basically a 21.5-inch vertical tablet with a mounted camera) tracks more than 100 health parameters by scanning blood flow beneath the surface of your face.
The device promises to detect signs of everything from high blood pressure, to fever symptoms, to depression or mental health risks, to stroke risk after 10 years, to “facial skin age.” But it can also warn you if it thinks you are about to die.
One telemedicine expert praised the device as “ideal for clinics and elderly care centers.”
And the manufacturer hopes the device will help give people advance warning of the “proactive” medical attention they need, offering the device not just for homes but also for retailers, gyms, schools, retirement homes and pharmacies.
At the heart of the Anura MagicMirror is a powerful internal optical sensor that pools data for a cloud-based algorithm to analyze. The 21.5-inch vertical tablet with mounted camera tracks more than 100 health parameters by scanning blood flow just below the skin’s surface
The Anura MagicMirror promises to detect signs of everything from high blood pressure or possible fever symptoms, to depression or mental health risk, to the risk of stroke after 10 years, to ‘facial skin age’. But it can also warn you if it thinks you are about to die
At the heart of the new device, the Anura MagicMirror from NuraLogix, is a powerful internal optical sensor that pools data for a cloud-based algorithm to analyze.
The sensor, NuraLogix’s patented Transdermal Optical Imaging (TOI) technology, uses a method already used in hospitals and technically known as Photoplethysmographyto record changes in blood volume in the tiny ‘microvascular’ capillaries of facial tissue.
That blood flow data is then sent to the company’s DeepAffex ‘Affective AI’ platform, which “uses advanced signal processing and machine learning AI algorithms to calculate more than 100 health parameters,” the company said.
But Marzio Pozzuoli, CEO of NuraLogix, was quick to tell Wired at CES that MagicMirror’s camera does not use facial recognition technology.
Only blood flow data, Pozzuoli said, is sent to the cloud for AI analysis, while the video feed the device records to create your “reflection” remains local.
However, not everyone was relieved by these commitments, with one columnist for the Washington Times believes that, ‘as with all things AI, the potential for harm lies just around the corner from the intended good.’
Regardless, the NuraLogix CEO said he expects the MagicMirror to start out as a product for corporate customers, installed in places like gyms, pharmacies, clinic waiting rooms or even construction sites where quick health assessments can mean life or death.
But eventually, Pozzuoli hopes the MagicMirror will become a mainstream home care device.
Only blood flow data, says NuraLogix CEO Marzio Pozzuoli, is sent to the cloud for AI analysis, while the video feed the device records to create your ‘reflection’ remains local
A telemedicine expert praised the device in an X-post as “ideal for clinics and retirement homes”
| Vital/physical indexes | Metabolic health risk assessments | Mental health | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood pressure | T2 Diabetes Risk Assessment | Mental stress | |
| Cardiac workload | Risk of cardiovascular disease (10 years) | Depression Health Risk | |
| Heartbeat | Risk of heart attack (10 years) | ||
| Respiratory rate | Risk of stroke (10 years) | ||
| Irregular heartbeat | Risk of hypertension | ||
| Heart rate variability | Hypercholesterolemia | ||
| BMI | Hypertriglyceridemia | ||
| Body shape index | Fatty liver disease | ||
| Waist-to-height ratio | Morning fasting blood glucose | ||
| Facial skin age | Hemoglobin a1c |
According to Wired, Pozzuoli expects that a number of measurements “will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this year, with more to follow.”
However, despite all the good he might do in a day, the MagicMirror is not always polite and does not always adhere to social niceties.
A Sun a reporter reviewing the product at CES complained, “Highlights included the mirror telling me my ‘facial skin age’ is seven years older than I actually am.”
“It also told me that I need to work on reducing my mental stress.”
And even the company’s PR copy seems to acknowledge that MagicMirror’s relentlessly grim commentary, a la the Evil Queen’s magic mirror in Snow White, is part of the device’s long-term commercial appeal.
(‘Mirror, Mirror On The Wall’, NuraLogix press release jokes‘Who is the healthiest of us all?’)
According to the NuraLogix websitethe MagicMirror is not yet available for retail sale, but ‘for research purposes only’.
“The performance characteristics of this product,” the company said, “have not been established.”