Eli Health brings hormone testing to the iPhone

Eli Health’s Hormometer, next to an iPhone – Image credit: Eli Health

Eli Health’s Hormometer turns an iPhone into a real-time hormone analyzer, offering insights into your hormone levels using your saliva.

Apple’s ecosystem can do a lot of health tracking, but it doesn’t have the ability to monitor hormones. Eli Health wants to change that with its Hormometer, introduced at CES.

The Hormometer is a device that works with a smartphone, like an iPhone, to perform testing that is typically performed in a lab at home. By examining a person’s saliva, it can pull out insights about the user’s health.

An imbalance of hormones could be a signifier of various issues, including chronic stress and fatigue, infertility, weakened immunity, and weight gain.

Saliva is collected by a slim cartridge that’s placed in the mouth and held for a minute. The tip has a collection pad that captures a sample and releases it into a self-contained bioassay. The bioassay detects specific hormones that bind with capturing agents, which then produce visible test lines within 20 minutes.

Eli Health claims it has up to a million times greater sensitivity than most other at-home testing products. This is assisted by the iPhone’s camera and a companion app to check the alignment, color intensity, and patterns, which are analyzed by AI algorithms.

The analysis process can take seconds when it would normally take longer if it were sent for processing via a laboratory.

The system will start by monitoring two key hormones at first. Cortisol regulates stress responses, as well as the metabolism, immune function, cognitive and physical performance, and other areas.

The second is progesterone, which relates to reproductive health, including menstrual cycles, fertility, perimenopause, and endocrine conditions.

Eli Health’s test provides 97% accuracy for cortisol compared to an FDA-approved traditional lab gold standard test, with progesterone at a 94% accuracy. Tests for testosterone and estradiol are also in development.

The Eli Health app also offers extra information, including personalized trends and recommendations for managing imbalances.

The Eli Health Hormometer is launching in the U.S. and Canada in January, with subscripts starting from $8 per test for a 12-month commitment.