The 25 Best Inventions of 2016
16. The No-Touch Thermometer
Anyone who has ever had a sick child knows what a hassle it can be to take someone’s temperature using the traditional method—slipping a thermometer under her tongue, getting her to sit still for minutes at a time and hoping that whatever reading you get is accurate.
That’s why, in recent years, many brands have started to make no-touch thermometers, which use infrared technology to measure core body temperature quickly and precisely. But one model stands out both for its design and its efficacy: Arc’s InstaTemp (and its more precise, clinical version, InstaTemp MD), which was recently approved by the FDA. Once the device is placed roughly an inch from a patient’s forehead, it spits out a temperature in 2.5 seconds—coded red, yellow or green, depending on the reading. “If you can take a temperature this way, why would you do it any other way?” says Irwin Gross, CEO of Arc, which is marketing the InstaTemp devices to consumers and health care professionals alike. “We think this is the way all temperatures will be taken in the future.”