Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
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Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#2[deleted]
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#3having built the system and analysis method behind an absorption photospectroscopy (IR/VIS/UV) based device to measure a specific set of rigorously prepared and filtered bio-analytes, i would strongly advise against accepting this devices claims. Spectroscopy is a wonderful tool, but it's not a new one, and far more sophisticated machines have tried and failed at this consumer level device's claims. caveat emptor.
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#4if I understood correctly it works with surface light reflection near IR spectrum, which is fine for certain set of food, and useless for many others. Anything that has different structure inside compared to surface will give only partial results (from apples to chocolate coating to ... well you get the point).
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#5I could see something like this being very useful for preventing deaths due to contaminated party drugs. If it works.
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#6from [the store](https://www.consumerphysics.com/myscio/order):
$249/ $449 for the dev kit.
> Expected shipping date: March 2016
Sadly, no mention of (F)OSS anywhere on the site.
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#7I could see something like this being very useful for preventing deaths due to contaminated party drugs. If it works.
That's not the sort of test you'll be able to do with this device. Pills tend to be opaque for one, and the contamination may very well be too small to detect anyway.
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#8I could see something like this being very useful for preventing deaths due to contaminated party drugs. If it works.
That's not the sort of test you'll be able to do with this device. Pills tend to be opaque for one, and the contamination may very well be too small to detect anyway.
I agree that this device wouldn't work for that assay, but the opacity of the pills isn't a factor: the optical bench is too small and the illumination will be too low to do anything worthwhile.
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#9[deleted]
Re: Pocket spectrometer lets you measure the molecular makeup of nearly anything
#10I could see something like this being very useful for preventing deaths due to contaminated party drugs. If it works.
Raman spectroscopy is used in pharma manufacturing and law enforcement to inspect pharma evidence in the field, but compact Raman spectrometers are a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive than this consumer device. Also, you really need an analytical chemist to interpret the data. Raman is hard.
NIR spectroscopy, which is what this product uses, isn't very sensitive and wouldn't be a good choice to look for trace contaminants even on quality instrumentation.