Monday, April 28, 2008

A Pretty Concept Meter - Ninos

Concept art for diabetes products seems to be a new trend. On the one hand, it'll be great if any of this stuff actually hits the market. On the other hand, these concepts always seem to be promotional pieces for designers with little chance of actually getting picked up by an equipment manufacturer.

The one that caught my eye today was a dual concept study called the Ninos As & Ninos GL. They are very stylish, very pretty in modern black and silver.

Reading the story though, I wondered how much research had been done. The Ninos As is an insulin inhaler concept. As sleek and streamlined as it is, I'm not sure how valuable a concept it is when Inhaled Insulin has been linked to Lung Cancer.

The blood meter concept (the Ninos GL) looks a lot like a cellphone. It has a shiny touchscreen and all the charts and graphs you need built in. I love this concept.

However, the concept meter uses a "bloodless glucose measurement system". Apparently you're just supposed to press your finger against a notch in the top. Again wonderful, if the technology existed. As far as I know, it doesn't. The first meter that doesn't use test strips is going to have millions of people flocking to it.

I haven't been able to find much about these concepts - most of my searches online have returned reprints of the same article, often written as if these were actual, available devices. I think they may be German, from squinting at the photos provided. I don't know if there part of some contest or just a designers portfolio.

Love the prettiness of these, but I do wonder about the science behind them.

2 comments:

Christine said...

Ninos is the most popular pizza place in this area. I'd hate to think of pizza every time I had to test my bg.

Laura Williams said...

At least they don't name meters like they name cellphones. Can you imagine having to test with a 'chocolate' meter?