Playback Heart Sounds: The eKuore Pro Digital Stethoscope Review

THIS ARTICLE HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE 2019. THE INFORMATION SHARED IN THE ARTICLE WAS ACCURATE AT THE TIME OF ITS PUBLICATION, BUT IT MAY BE OUT OF DATE NOW. BROWSE OUR LATEST ARTICLES HERE

The white coat, the stethoscope, and the physician are inseparable as of yet. While artificial intelligence promises to become the next symbol of medicine, the eKuore Pro “only” aims to bring a much needed revamp of this ever-useful, iconic medical instrument. We found this wireless digital stethoscope to be fairly easy to use and feature-rich despite being remarkably heavier and pricier than conventional stethoscopes. If you want to know a pinch more detail about how the eKuore Pro performed, read our digital stethoscope review below.

From Vet to Med

The very mention of the word ‘doctor’ might elicit the image of a person with a stethoscope looped around their neck. The iconic tool used to listen to body sounds hasn’t changed substantially since the conception of its prototype in the 19th century. Very much in the same vein as the Eko Core or the CliniCoud, which we previously reviewed, the eKuore also considered the signs of the times and transformed the analog stethoscope into a digital one.

Based in Spain, the eKuore team is a group of developers and partner physicians who design and develop medical devices with a contemporary touch. Interestingly, their first device, the eKuore Vet stethoscope, was applied in the veterinary field, but that proved to be so successful that they released the medical version a couple of years later, in 2016. While there are many different types of digital stethoscopes for both veterinary and medical purposes, and even a teaching kit for medical professors and their med students and residents, only the latest version of the digital stethoscope, eKuore Pro, was the subject of our thorough testing process.

Different design, swift reading

What struck us at first with the eKuore Pro was the unconventional design. Sure it looks like a stethoscope but at the same time, radically different. It is designed as a handheld device with a removable stethoscope bell at one end and a pair of earphones connected to the other. The ‘wireless’ bit in the naming refers to the wireless connection that the device possesses, allowing it to connect to smartphones. These components, along with the built-in rechargeable battery, understandably add to the weight of the device.

Using the eKuore Pro is exactly the same as using a regular stethoscope, with extra features. After downloading and pairing it with the companion app, you can store, replay and share the recordings that the bell picks up. However, each recording is limited to 30 seconds. While this is normally enough to pick up suspicious sounds, a continuous recording without a time limit would have been much handier. After having published the review, the eKuore team told us that the user can edit the recording time on the app settings until 120 seconds, which is definitely a useful feature. We believe it should be mentioned in a more visible way – or, again, they should just scrap the limitation for recording time altogether.

Otherwise, the device can also be used without pairing it with a phone so anyone can listen to heart sounds through the earphones just like with a traditional stethoscope. Of note, the bell is removable, should you want to replace it or swap it for a pediatric bell.

Volume up and choose the right mode

From listening to heartbeats, breathing sounds, or intestinal movements, our readings were loud and clear, comparable to auscultations made from Littmann stethoscopes – considered as an industry standard. The eKuore Pro even has a built-in feature to adjust the volume of the reading. This seemingly simple feature is actually a great addition to stethoscopes. Given that diagnoses made from the latter depend on the user’s auditory acuity, faint and suspicious sounds might easily be overlooked with traditional stethoscopes.

However, by simply allowing the user to adjust the volume to a comfortable and/or more audible level, the eKuore Pro can potentially enhance the efficacy of a diagnosis. Moreover, it packs 3 modes namely Cardiac, Lung and Wide Range that allows the user to auscultate specific areas more precisely, which is quite a handy feature to have in a stethoscope. Be wary of adjusting the volume and/or the mode while taking recordings, as the button presses will also be recorded. Thank God, they can easily be distinguished from physiologic sounds, even if you’re not the next Mozart.

Play back those heart sounds

With a stethoscope, physicians can diagnose important clinical signs like heart murmurs and wheezing. However, for too long what has been heard was restricted to the bearer of the stethoscope only. With eKuore’s replay and sharing feature, this is a thing of the past. Say if a junior physician or a medical student hears an abnormal sound upon auscultation, and they would want the advice of a superior, they can just replay or simply share the audio file with another person.

This can be helpful in medical education to record and replay rare sounds like gallop heart sounds so that students can get more acquainted and also compare them. We would surely have loved to possess such a device as medical students. Such features can also be useful for healthcare practitioners who might want the opinion of specialists like cardiologists or pulmonologists but who are far away and can thereafter give their expert advice without having had to do the auscultation themselves.

However, the thing with new technologies often amounts to the cost. At a whopping price point of € 482,79, this futuristic-looking stethoscope might not make it into every physician’s pocket any time soon even if it offers many advantages over traditional stethoscope. Once such a device becomes more affordable, we can see it being more widely adopted and used to its fullest.

At The Medical Futurist, we are building a community for making a bold vision about the future of healthcare reality today. If you’d like to support this mission, we invite you to join The Medical Futurist Patreon Community. A community of empowered patients, future-oriented healthcare professionals, concerned health policymakers, sensible health tech developers, and enthusiastic medical students. If there were ever a time to join us, it is now. Every contribution, however big or small, powers our research and sustains our future. Click here to support The Medical Futurist from as little as $3 – it only takes a minute. Thank you.