Samsung has begun to reuse its older Galaxy smartphones to provide eye care in underprivileged countries, using the mobile camera to detect eye diseases in people through the camera.
Recycled cell phone cameras can be used to create low-cost eye disease detection devices like Samsung’s Eyelike
Older Galaxy mobile phones are introduced into Eyelike handheld eye cameras, which connect to a lens attachment for improved fundus diagnosis, while the ‘smartphone’ is used to capture images, as Samsung has reported in a statement.
The Galaxy device then uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm to analyze and diagnose eye disease images and connects to an app that captures patient data and suggests a treatment regimen.
This diagnostic camera can screen patients for conditions that can lead to blindness, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration.
The process takes place “at a fraction of the cost of commercial instruments”, as noted by Samsung, which has carried out this initiative to help disadvantaged populations in Vietnam and now extends it to India, Morocco and Papua New Guinea.
To do this, Samsung partnered in 2018 with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and the Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) in South Korea. Since then he has cared for more than 19,000 residents in Vietnam with his portable retinal camera.
Samsung is also expanding its capabilities into new areas of screening, including using recycled Galaxy devices to create smartphone-based portable colposcopes to detect cervical cancer.
As part of its Galaxy Upcycling program, in which this initiative is framed, Samsung has been giving other uses to mobile phones that are no longer used since 2017 to generate a positive impact.
