Sonde One

+ Q: How does Sonde One work?

A: Sonde One helps employers keep the workplace safe using a simple and fast daily screening protocol for employees. Sonde One includes a COVID-19 symptom questionnaire based on CDC guidelines, a temperature check, and an objective assessment of respiratory symptom risk based on Sonde’s proprietary vocal biomarker technology. Employees get their screening results immediately, while an easy to use dashboard allows employers to view daily screening activity and results.

+ Q: What technology does Sonde One run on?

A: Sonde One runs on iOS and Android smartphones using the Sonde Health app, available on the App Store or Google Play, or Sonde One can be easily integrated into any 3rd party mobile app via the Sonde API. The employer reporting dashboard is accessible via a web interface.

+ Q: How is information collected by Sonde One used and protected?

A: Sonde One captures user’s COVID-19 questionnaire responses, body temperature and a few seconds of voice (we only record the user saying “Ahhh”). This data is encrypted and securely transmitted to our private and secure cloud based servers hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our data science and machine learning teams only work with de-identified user data. The data is stored securely and is protected from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure with multiple safeguards implemented via AWS’ industry-leading technology platforms. User data can be purged upon request from our users or customers. Sonde Health follows HIPAA and GDPR guidelines. For more information on our security and privacy policy click here

+ Q: What is unique about Sonde One?

A: Sonde One is the only technology available to employers that adds a quick, accessible, and low-cost objective element to help screen for COVID-19 associated symptoms, using 6 seconds of voice. Everyone’s voice carries information about their health, and Sonde One allows employers to harness this information to keep the workplace safer.

+ Q: Is there more information about the voice biomarker technology in Sonde One?

A: Yes. Sonde’s vocal biomarker technology is based on research studies that involved thousands of clinical research subjects with respiratory conditions like asthma, COPD, pneumonia, persistent cough, and others. These volunteers provided their voice samples and medical information to Sonde’s digital biobank. Speech pathologists, signal processing engineers, and data scientists used this data to identify objective acoustic features in the voice samples that indicate the presence or severity of respiratory conditions. Sonde has built products using this knowledge that can identify a user’s respiratory symptom risk from their voice alone.

Sonde One analyzes 6 seconds of voice recorded on a smartphone for the presence of voice features that could indicate symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness, and coughing. Sonde One calibrates its scoring to each user, so it works equally well for people with or without underlying respiratory conditions. This allows Sonde One to monitor for sudden changes in respiratory symptom risk that might be the result of infection or other acute airway conditions. Scoring is translated into low, medium, and high risk levels, to assist with interpretation.

Objectively tracking respiratory symptom risk is unique to Sonde One. While changes in respiratory symptoms can have many underlying reasons and should not be interpreted as a diagnosis of COVID-19 or any other condition, the combination of objective voice analysis, symptom questions, and temperature checks is a comprehensive approach to daily screening that is fast (less than 1 minute), accessible (iOS and Android smartphones), and low-cost (no other hardware needed).