{"id":20426,"date":"2021-01-15T11:56:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T18:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/?p=20426"},"modified":"2023-06-07T17:06:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T00:06:42","slug":"2021-trend-pandemic-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/15\/2021-trend-pandemic-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 Trend: Pandemic Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This Year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES – January 11-14) is all virtual because of COVID-19, but what’s most interesting is the rapid turn towards pandemic technology. It seems that the tech world has turned out in force to solve the challenges created by the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Pandemic Tech?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pandemic tech refers to technology that aims to fight the threats posed by pandemic infectious disease through identification, warnings, sanitization, management, and analysis of data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is actually a crowdsourced community of innovators that has named itself PandemicTec<\/a>. These innovators are backed by a resource network dedicated to bridging the gap between the infectious disease community and the technology innovation ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are just a few of the incredibly high number of COVID-related products being unveiled at the 2021 digital fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smart Masks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announcements of smart masks<\/a> were everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AirPop Active+<\/a> (from AirPop) features a Halo sensor to measure the user’s breathing data and their surrounding air quality. Available at select retailers for $149.99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maskfone<\/a> (from UK telecom company Binatone) doubles as both a mask and a hands-free headset.  It’s basically a Bluetooth headset plus earbuds sewn into a mask designed to take N95 inserts. Available at retailers including Target and Amazon for $49.99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aeri<\/a> (from Huami, the NASDAQ-listed wearables startup) features a see-through plastic mask with built-in ultraviolet lights to disinfect filters in10 minutes when connected to a USB port. This product is not just about viruses – it’s also targeted at protection from everyday air pollution. No price point yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sanitizing Robots for Large Spaces<\/strong>
<\/strong>Robots are coming to save us, not take over the world. Several robots were showcased that can disinfect large spaces. They use ultraviolet radiation<\/a>, which has been shown to destroy the outer protein coating of some viruses leading to their deactivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UBTECH Robotics introduced the newest additions to its portfolio of humanoid robots, including its Adibot UV-C disinfecting robot<\/a>. This giant, cylindrical beast is primarily aimed at small businesses and schools. The Adibot-S is designed to be manually wheeled from room to room and priced at $20,000. The Adibot-A uses a Lidar sensor to pilot itself autonomously – available in May at $40,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNIPIN  UV-C Robot<\/a> can disinfect 1,000 square meters in approximately 100 minutes. Guangdong Unipin Medical Technology is a Chinese company. No information as to price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG Electronics<\/a> announced the development of an autonomous UV-c robot to disinfect high-touch, high-traffic areas. The company plans to offer the UV robot to US corporate, retail, hospitality, education, restaurant, and transportation customers in early 2021. No information on price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Home Sanitization Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first-ever online CES featured a wide array of “clean tech” products to make your home more sanitary. Germ zapping components are everywhere – in air purifiers, wireless chargers, and refrigerators<\/a>, launching a new breed of multi-use Swiss Army gadgets<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Targus introduced its UV-C LED Disinfection Light<\/a>. This ultraviolet lamp is designed to sit above your keyboard and mouse (and anything else you want to clean) and automatically eliminates 99.9% of viruses and bacteria by letting it run for five minutes every hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also from Targus, a 2Office Antimicrobial Backpack<\/a> for when you need to carry your laptop. The backpack has antimicrobial coatings on “key touchpoints” to lessen the chance of picking up a nasty illness. Targus doesn’t yet have price points for its introductory products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CleanAirZone debuted a bio-based air purifier<\/a> that does away with the need for air filters. The company claims that the purifier destroys 99.99% of indoor air contaminants indoors, including viruses such as COVID-19. The purifier will be available later this year at a price around $1,495. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wearable Skin Sensors Detect Covid<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From BioIntelliSense, the BioButton<\/a> is a cost-effective medical-grade wearable solution for monitoring COVID-19 symptoms at home, work, and school. The BioButton works with the BioMobile app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

iWavenology (based in Taiwan) created a simple wearable device called iDistance<\/a> that sets off an alarm whenever someone comes too close to another person. Using UWB technology, it can process up to 50 users simultaneously within 1 second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NeuTigers, an AI company spun out of Princeton University, introduced a rapid-screening app that is 90% accurate in detecting COVID-19 using a wearable sensor device. The Coviddeep app<\/a> is twice as effective as current triage tools, such as temperature checks and questionnaires. Field testing is still ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final thoughts: <\/strong>
These tech startups and established companies quickly pivoted to launch pandemic ready- technologies within about a year, even with broken supply chains in China during spring 2020. As life starts to resemble the way it was prior, some technologies will fall by the wayside, as mask-wearing is unlikely to be a default behavior in highly independent western societies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This Year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES – January 11-14) is all virtual because of COVID-19, but what’s most interesting is the rapid turn towards pandemic technology. It seems that the tech world has turned out in force to solve the challenges created by the pandemic.  … Continue reading2021 Trend: Pandemic Tech<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,235,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-modern-wellbeing","category-virtual-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}