FDA-approved Eko Core stethoscope attachment records and sends heart audio wave images to an iPhone app; abnormality-detecting algorithm is in clinical trials
Take a Deep Breath, Then Check Your Smartphone — The stethoscope, that iconic tool of doctors, has been upgraded several times since it was invented two centuries ago.
Context & Ripple Effects
Eko Core's 2015 clearance is the origin point of a now-complete arc: an attachment that records heart sounds to an iPhone, with an abnormality-detection algorithm still in trials. Eight years later that bet pays out at population scale, when the NHS puts an AI stethoscope from Mayo Clinic spinoff Eko into 200 GP surgeries to screen for heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and valvular disease.
The competitive field formed fast around this template — rival AliveCor built an AI platform for flagging cardiac abnormalities and pushed further into consumer hardware, while Eko itself raised a $65M Series C to scale remote disease screening.
First-order effects
- Doctors using Eko Core can record and share heart-sound wave images through the iPhone app, turning a once-transient bedside signal into a stored, transmissible data object.
Second-order effects
- AliveCor's move up the same stack — from mobile monitors to an AI diagnostic layer, then to the FDA-cleared Kardiaband accessory for the Apple Watch — forces cardiac screening onto consumer wrists as well as clinicians' necks.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, auscultation shifts from a clinician's trained ear to sensor-plus-algorithm screening embedded in routine care — with regulators approving not just devices but the algorithms that interpret their output, as Eko's trial-to-NHS pathway demonstrates.
The trend: Cardiac examination is migrating from analog instruments to FDA-regulated sensor-and-AI platforms deployed everywhere from GP surgeries to smartwatches.