Home health trackers are currently most or less limited to recording your activity level and tracking your weight. A device called Cue is changing the game by taking actual biological measurements using biofluids like blood or saliva. The Cue’s microfluidic system and bio-sensors can give you a much more complete picture of your overall health than any other health tracker.

Cue tracks five different aspects of your body’s health: inflammation, influenza, testosterone, fertility, and Vitamin D. There are separate cartridges for each health metric; you place a biological sample on a Sample Wand and insert it into the appropriate cartridge, which is enclosed in the larger Bluetooth-enabled Cue box.

The box analyzes the sample and sends the results straight to the Cue smartphone app. The app tracks changes in the health metrics over time, giving you a clear picture of whether you are getting enough Vitamin D, telling you when you’re ovulating, or helping you figure out whether you have a cold or the flu.

You can test yourself as often as you want, which will no doubt be a huge help to some people who previously only had access to these tests through expensive doctor visits. Of course, the Cue involves a substantial initial investment: it is available at a pre-launch price of $199. That price will go up to $300 when it launches in Spring 2015. Additional Sample Wands, cartridges, and a carrying case will also be available post-launch.

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Having your finger pricked with a needle to check your blood glucose level can be scary no matter what your age, but for little kids it can be especially traumatic. Vampire Winny, from designer Diana Dumitrescu, is meant to make the experience a little more fun and a little less scary for kids.

The glucometer looks like a cute, friendly vampire – which is fitting given the fact that its sole purpose is to get blood from users. Kids stick their fingers into Winny’s mouth and press down on the trigger to activate the little needle. Then they touch the testing strip located in Winny’s head to start the testing process.

The Vampire Winny iPhone app then reveals the child’s glucose level. If it’s too low or too high it will give an alert that’s easy for the child to understand. Using an app that’s actually geared toward kids gives the kids a bit of autonomy and makes them feel like they have some control over their disease, which can be a huge benefit for someone with diabetes. Unfortunately Vampire Winny is only a concept, but it’s an ingenious one that could do a world of good for diabetic kids (and adults).

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Sleep apnea, a disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing during sleep, affects millions of people worldwide. It can be a scary experience for the sufferer, but since it often causes very loud snoring it can be an incredibly disturbing experience for others in the household as well.

The Kabe Group at Waseda University are developing a “robotic pillow” to help ease the symptoms of sleep apnea sufferers. The pillow is actually more like a big, soft teddy bear with moving arms. The bear’s body is a pillow and its robotic arms reach out to gently nudge the sleeper onto his side when his breathing is interrupted or his snoring becomes bothersome.

The system operates with a pulse oxymeter, a small device worn on the finger to measure oxygen concentration in the blood. When the wearer’s blood oxygen dips and it is apparent that he has stopped breathing, the pillow’s actuators go into action. The pillow can either cause the sleeper to roll over onto his side or wake him up entirely, depending on the severity of the breathing interruption.

While the concept seems to be a beneficial one that could help a lot of people, we have to wonder why it’s got to be so cutesy. The sleeping bear pillow with its sweet little face is complemented by the pulse oxymeter, which happens to be in the shape of a furry sheep with a bottle of milk in its mouth. Since sleep apnea affects more men than women, we’ve got to assume that the Kabe Group is just trying to humiliate those men into getting over their snoring problem.

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Food poisoning is, to put it mildly, one of the most miserable experiences a human can endure. It often results from E. coli bacteria hiding out in contaminated food like under-cooked ground beef. It’s hard to tell before you eat bad beef if there’s something in it that’s going to make you all queasy. To alleviate some of the risk of ingesting tainted hamburgers, engineers at UCLA have developed a scanner that utilizes your smartphone’s camera and lets you know if there’s an unpleasant experience waiting on your plate.

The attachment uses quantum dots – teeny-tiny semiconductors – to turn your phone into a sort of fluorescent microscope, lighting up telltale E. coli signs in meat. If the device ever makes it to the market, it will be the first hand-held E. coli detector available to consumers. It would be even better if it could detect other kinds of harmful bacteria, but perhaps the UCLA engineers have that on their list.

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It’s been proven that working out and dieting with a friend can increase your success rate. This is thought to be because you feel accountable to your buddy and don’t want to disappoint. Could the same concept work if the “buddy” isn’t human? Autom is a sweet little robotic diet coach that will help you stick to a diet and exercise routine by keeping track of your food intake and your exercise habits.

The idea is that looking at a cute face and hearing a soothing voice is a more positive interaction than entering your data into a mobile or web-based application. Autom asks you what you’ve eaten and how much you have exercised, then offers some helpful tips about sticking to your healthy lifestyle. She’s wi-fi enabled so she’s constantly updated, and she learns from conversations with you.

Like the Roomba before her, Autom is a groundbreaking home helper robot. Users form an emotional bond with the bot and depend on her for diet information and encouragement. It may sound strange, but maybe a weight loss helper robot is exactly what some people need to keep them on the right track. Autom is available for pre-order now for $199 – but the weight loss service that she uses will cost you $20/month.

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