Changhong’s H2 Can Detect Objects’ Molecular Signatures

The tech world gets more impressive every day. Changhong’s H2 is a smartphone that can detect molecular signatures. The phone is equipped with a miniature near-infrared spectrometer that allows the phone to detect molecules. In case you’re wondering, a molecular signature is a set of genes or proteins. This sensor is then able to read an object and understand its molecular “code,” or essentially, what it’s made up of.

This sensor can’t work for every object — yet — but it is able to work with food or your body, for example. You can use the sensor to determine the gluten content of bread, the fat content of an avocado, or the sugar content of an orange. The sensor can also determine which pill is which, or your body fat percentage. You can even scan a sandwich and it’ll tell you the nutritional information of it. Although the sensor isn’t 100% accurate, it is still accurate a majority of the time. It works better when providing information about food rather than bodies, though.

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In order for the phone to work in this manner, however, app developers need to develop apps for using the sensor. That way, the sensor can perform a specific task, such as reading the nutritional information of a food item. One such app is the Diet Sensor app, which uses the phone’s molecule sensor to determine a food’s mass so that the nutritional information can be determined.

As for more real-world applications of this sensor, this feature could be especially beneficial to dieters, diabetics, and the like. It could make diabetes far easier to manage — you’d no longer have to log and estimate your food’s nutritional information. The sensor could even determine whether or not your drink has been tampered with, or whether you’ve been receiving sugar pills instead of the real version of a pill.

What are other features of the phone?

The smartphone’s ability to detect molecular signatures is by far it’s most impressive feature. Otherwise, it looks like an average Android phone. It has a 6-inch, high-resolution display with a 2.0 GHz, 8-core CPU. The phone also claims to be more energy efficient than other smartphones.

When and where will this phone be released?

This phone will be released in China later this year, and should come to the US not long after. The price of the device is still unknown, but it is estimated to be over $400.