LinkSquare – as the spectrometer is called – was developed by the Californian firm Stratio and resembles an external smartphone battery. The device is connected with the telephone with a USB cable, and can be used to verify the authenticity of pills.
The user simply places the pill on the small window of the spectrometer, from which it is then illuminated by light with various wavelengths. The pill’s reflections are then registered by the device’s image sensors and displayed in the form of two graphics on the connected smartphone’s display.
The recorded spectrum of the tested pill can then be compared with that of known pills using a database stored in the bundled app. If the tested pill is a counterfeit, it will reflect a different light spectrum than the original product.
Stratio wants to begin selling its spectrometer this year for a price of 199 US dollars, but first the product must be made more durable and user-friendly, says Youngsik Kim, co-founder and head of systems technology at Stratio. Also, the handling still needs to be improved as the spectrum might be reflected incorrectly if the pill is not put exactly in the middle of the window.
