[HN Gopher] CT Scans of Health Wearables
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CT Scans of Health Wearables
Author : radeeyate
Score : 163 points
Date : 2026-03-06 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lumafield.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lumafield.com)
| robmusial wrote:
| The entire library of scans on this site is great. It gives me a
| similar feeling as being a kid and playing around in 'The Way
| Things Work'[0].
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Nz1y7Sj74
| hyperific wrote:
| Glad they're still doing these. I really enjoyed Scan of the
| Month and then they just stopped doing new scans after the Moka
| Pot.
| paulwetzel wrote:
| Really love these scans! I would love to have on of these at
| home, just to tinker with devices and understand how they work.
| Then I usually want to check the price, see "Talk to sales" an
| decide probably not the price range that is good for private use.
| Nonetheless, great articles and an amazing device.
| mikestew wrote:
| I'm sure there's the small issue of radiological safety as
| well. Obviously one can be trained to not fry yourself with
| x-rays, but I wouldn't, say, pick one up off Aliexpress and
| have at it.
| eichin wrote:
| Some of their earlier videos go into a lot of detail on the
| safety interlocks (including that the radiation near the
| device can be _lower_ than ambient because it 's basically a
| large chunk of shielding :-)
|
| As for pricing, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45392896
| had some numbers from 5 months ago. It seems like the kind of
| thing that you'd want as a nearby service, unless you needed
| to do continuous inspection (they have some automated
| conveyor sampling products too, it looks like.) My last
| company had a few 3d-printed components that would have been
| interesting to spot check after wear testing, but for a lot
| of things, the competition for the scan is "open it up with a
| screwdriver" :-)
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I bet it's something you can lease with a traceable
| calibration certificate.
| jcims wrote:
| mikeselectricstuff on YouTube did a teardown on the Omnipod
| wearable pump a while back, very cool mechanism.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2MQUUkubgs
|
| Insulin is incredibly potent and can easily result in life-
| altering if not fatal consequences at relatively low ratios of
| the therapeutic dose, so these things need to be dialed in and
| extremely reliable.
| Aurornis wrote:
| YouTube teardowns from knowledgeable engineers are a gold mine
| for learning how real world products are engineered. I always
| recommend these for early career hardware students and
| engineers.
| mlsu wrote:
| What's so wild (and a little disheartening) is that the omnipod
| is a disposable device. Use it for several days, and throw it
| out.
|
| This is an extreme corner of quality/cost/reliability
| optimization. The delivery mechanism has to be extremely
| repeatable and reliable, it has to fail in safe ways, but at
| the same time, it has to be cheap enough to throw away.
|
| Durable pumps are all made with very expensive precision
| mechanisms, lots of metal and high quality plastic.
| chiph wrote:
| A friend's coworker had their pump lock on, and inject the
| entire reservoir of insulin into them. They were discovered in
| their home by the police after family members lost contact. No
| idea if it was an Omnipod, but I would hope that all insulin
| pumps have a separate watchdog circuit to prevent this.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| I dont want CT scans of wearables. I want wearables that can do
| CT scans.
| cheschire wrote:
| well, maybe wearables that provide some sort of internal visual
| scans. But with CT scans delivering 70 times the radiation of a
| typical x-ray, I think I'd prefer not wearing a portable
| chernobyl.
|
| Maybe a wearable ultrasound instead?
|
| edit: after a little informal side-searching after posting
| this, I've learned that people working at Chernobyl, not in the
| reactor directly, but elsewhere in the sprawling site received
| anywhere from 1 to 100 CT scans worth of radiation. The
| firefighters that were on the roof received anywhere from 100
| to 1,600 CT scans worth of radiation.
| realityfactchex wrote:
| > Maybe a wearable ultrasound instead?
|
| If one is concerned about the potentially damaging effects of
| radiation, and the relative safety of ultrasound technology
| springs to mind, then one may be also interested in reading
| more about the apparently forbidden topic of ultrasound
| safety studies, if such a person can get past the cognitive
| dissonance from having been told the consensus opinion on how
| safe ultrasound is, e.g.:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Studies-Conducted-Indicate-
| Prenatal-U...
|
| https://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/50-human-
| studies-j...
|
| http://whale.to/c/50_human_studies.html
|
| https://harvoa.substack.com/p/dbr
|
| The jury may still be out?
| leereeves wrote:
| All of those links are for the same book from 2015 (the
| fourth isn't direct to the relevant article but it's easy
| to find on the page). Has there been any new information
| since then?
| realityfactchex wrote:
| The 50 studies in the cited 2015 book ought to span a
| range of time, and their keywords could be used to search
| literature for more recent material.
|
| > Has there been any new information since then?
|
| Since you asked, there apparently was a 2017 followup
| book by the same author. These links are for that book:
|
| https://harvoa.org/chs/pr/dusbk2.htm
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Ultrasound-Causation-Microcephaly-
| Vir...
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36466945-ultrasound-
| caus...
| leereeves wrote:
| That book claims:
|
| > Microcephaly incidence increased 1000x within the area
| of The Network. This was first observed seven months
| after The Network began its remote prenatal ultrasound
| program. Do the math.
|
| Almost every baby is exposed to prenatal ultrasound. What
| do you think was different about that ultrasound program?
| Why would prenatal ultrasound cause microencephaly there,
| but not everywhere?
| realityfactchex wrote:
| > not everywhere?
|
| Are you absolutely certain that there is _not_ an
| unexplained uptick in brain damaged newborns /children in
| the USA?
|
| And that its cause is _not_ some thing(s) that "almost
| every" one of them is subjected to repeatedly?
|
| And that it is not just a case of better/more/over
| diagnosis?
|
| IDK about by you, but there are literal _nurseries
| /schools for the brain-damaged kids_ popping up on Main
| Street. That's how many there seem to be.
|
| So yeah, maybe they're not in that study. But that means
| they don't exist?
| cheschire wrote:
| I personally prefer to approach the topic of "safety" by
| considering the trade-offs. The knowledge gained through
| ultrasound significantly outweighs potential risks
| associated with it.
|
| People still continue to play the lotto thinking they will
| win, and they reject statistically low risks in lieu of a
| greater risk created by avoidance. See: any vaccination
| topic.
|
| When shifting into the topic of a wearable though, the
| extreme amount of time alone amplifies the risks into
| outright dangerous levels. I did not seriously believe
| ultrasound to be safe to that level.
| realityfactchex wrote:
| > a wearable though, the extreme amount of time alone
| amplifies the risks
|
| The time, and also the proximity.
|
| As I understand it, the potential dangers of a lot of
| these kinds of things dissipate quite rapidly with
| distance.
|
| But with wearables, the emitters are quite literally
| strapped against the body (practically zero distance).
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| That is not even close to feasible with today's level of
| technology, and will not be for quite some time.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Is it just me or did the tonality in this one change towards an
| infomercial?
| mikestew wrote:
| Could be, the company behind the website would like to sell you
| an industrial CT scanner.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| They always were supposed to be for marketing, but I did like
| their in-depth technical analysis. I imagine that took a lot of
| work/time to write up though. I'm okay with them skipping that
| sometimes to get more public scans out for me to enjoy. But I
| also would love their analysis as well!
|
| One thing I really enjoyed about the analysis was how it really
| explained the nuance of the technology they sell, and there
| were always lessons in it for how to tweak the machines on
| different objects/materials, and how to interpret things, and
| why certain areas looked the way they did.
|
| For example, on the Omnipod[0], why can't I find an attenuation
| window to see how much medicine is left inside the reservoir?
| Is it empty? Is the medicine too low in attenuation to be seen?
| Is the medicine too similar in attenuation to the outer casing
| to isolate from it? Could it be isolated if the machine were
| set up / configured with different settings, and if so, what
| are the tradeoffs?
|
| 0:
| https://voyager.lumafield.com/project/16d13f1d-58f5-4572-b2a...
| skyberrys wrote:
| The custom Lipo battery with thermal effects and weight
| considered is really beautiful to see. I've been curious about
| custom Lipo battery shapes for rings because my fingers get cold
| when I wear rings. Would a battery heating up just a bit help
| make that comfortable for me?
| mikestew wrote:
| _Would a battery heating up just a bit help make that
| comfortable for me?_
|
| In something ring-sized? Maybe for about five minutes, and then
| the battery dies. (I assume you mean using resistive elements
| to create heat; heating the actual battery seems like a bad
| idea.)
| Terr_ wrote:
| > my fingers get cold when I wear rings
|
| Unless the ring is shaped as a heatsink/radiator, I imagine it
| would eventually get into equilibrium, and you wouldn't feel
| the heat-flux.
|
| Is it possible that the "coldness" comes from its indirect
| affect on blood-circulation?
| DJBunnies wrote:
| A battery. Which can catch fire. Around your finger?
| nerdsniper wrote:
| I know people from Lumafield read these comments occasionally,
| and I'm grateful for all of this!
|
| Why is the Omnipod available[0] to explore in Voyager, but the
| Dexcom is not? I'd like to send links to both for my diabetic
| girlfriend to enjoy, who uses those two particular devices.
|
| 0:
| https://voyager.lumafield.com/project/16d13f1d-58f5-4572-b2a...
| perdomon wrote:
| still not into scroll-jacking, but these breakdowns were well-
| written and documented.
| tlb wrote:
| Great images, OK writeup. There are some bits of bullshit, like
| "The proximity of microphones to processing hardware minimizes
| latency". No, the speed of electrical signal propagation (around
| 2/3 the speed of light) is not significant for microphone
| placement.
| sllabres wrote:
| It's always interesting to see how are things build in the
| Lumafields "Scan of the month". The the most interesting scan
| from Lumafield I saw was not a Scan of the month, but in "Adam
| Savage's Tested: Surprising Flaws in 18650 Lithium-Ion Batteries"
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y23nfAOiXQ
|
| PS: Nice company logo btw. ;)
| pants2 wrote:
| San Diego is really a hub for health wearables! Tijuana to an
| extent too.
|
| Oura - based in SD.
|
| Dexcomm - based in SD.
|
| Omnipod/Insulet - major R&D hub in SD & TJ.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Oura is headquartered in Oulu Finland and the main US office is
| in SF.
|
| San Diego does have a bunch of health tech, but it pales in
| comparison to Boston.
| bonsai_spool wrote:
| > San Diego does have a bunch of health tech, but it pales in
| comparison to Boston.
|
| I don't have firm data on this, but colloquially among
| medical people, San Diego is seen to have more biotech
| startups than any other metro, including Boston/SF.
|
| Boston has more research, of course, though SD is competitive
| there as well.
|
| We can disagree about numbers etc, but 'pales' doesn't
| reflect reality.
|
| edit: https://www.cbre.com/insights/local-response/global-
| life-sci... -- support for it being an important life science
| market
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(page generated 2026-03-06 23:00 UTC)