Wii Balance Board Gives $18,000 Medical Device a Run For Its Money

Gizmodo highlights a very cool repurposing effort for the Wii's Balance Board accessory. Rather than the specialized force platforms used to quantify patients' ability to balance after a trauma like stroke, doctors at the University of Melbourne thought that a Balance Board might serve as well. Says the article: "When doctors disassembled the board, they found the accelerometers and strain gauges to be of 'excellent' quality. 'I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up.'" Games controllers you'd expect to be durable and at least fairly accurate; what's surprising is just how much comparable, purpose-built devices cost. In this case, the Balance Board (just under $100) was compared favorably with a test platform that costs just a shade less than $18,000.

Comments

Re:"Not for ________ use"

[Hadlock]

exactly. the FDA requires significant documentation of the hardware and software along all lines of the R&D, and manufacturing process. which are actively audited by the FDA. documentation, and documentation compliance is a huge chunk (not the largest, but definitely a line item on their accounting paperwork) of their budget.

Re:accelerometers?

[Anonymous Coward]

New Scientist may have made that up. The actual journal article on ScienceDirect only discusses a black-box approach: i.e., putting patients on the board and seeing what happens. The procedure doesn't mention disassembling the device whatsoever!

Re:"Not for ________ use"

[RobVB]

Nice post with a nice result, although you used some mystery maths to get there.

Sales proceeds need to be: $93.5 million. That means, the price for each unit needs to be: $93.50 per unit. What if they want a healthier profit margin? Their sole purpose in life is to manufacture medical devices, they don't sell software -- they need a good profit margin from selling their product. A fair profit margin is 100% or more. To achieve that, the minimum price is $930.50 per unit.

First you say 85 bucks is their break-even point, which means they have to sell it at 93.50 for a 10% profit margin (1.1 times 85). Then you somehow (almost) multiplied by 10 to get 930.50 bucks?

If 85 bucks is break-even, then they'll have a 100% profit margin selling at twice that, or 170 bucks. Not 930.50.

Also, 1 million sales is unrealistic for a niche product, it will probably be more like 200,000 sales. To maintain a healthy product with 1/20 of 1 million, the actual price needed will be 20x that, or $18,610.00

200,000 is 1/5 of 1 million. So following your line of thought, the actual price would be 5 times 170, or 850 bucks.

You did, however, say they produced 1 million of them, costing them 75 million in parts and labor. If they're only making 200,000 those costs would only be 15 million. Adding 10 million research costs to that makes a total of 25 million in production costs. To get that 100% profit margin, they'd need to earn 50 million in sales, meaning 50 million bucks/ 200,000 units = 250 bucks per unit.

Holy smokes, that's nowhere near the "$18,000 medical device" price.

Re:"Not for ________ use"

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

You have obviously never worked in an industry with high quality control standards.

I worked at a nuclear power plant that happened to be on a Navy ship. One of our supply guys had to order some simple part (a resistor or something) that was categorized as part of the nuclear plant, and it was maybe $100 through the supply system. He took the part number home, called the supplier from his home phone presenting himself as a hobbyist. It was about $1 for the same part. I guess we were paying $99 for the QC sticker they put on it before they sent it off through the supply system.

Disclaimer (because /. has taught me I need one): I'm not saying all QCed stuff is expensive for no reason. Just that sometimes people really are getting ripped off in the name of QC.

Re:"Not for ________ use"

[hairyfeet]

Yeah they may give you great response time, but they totally bone you on the parts! A buddy of mine works IT for a hospital. One of their imaging machines had a HDD die, so he looks and it is a standard IDE HDD. He calls the company to see if he can just change it out, as they need that machine ASAP. "No, it'll void your warranty if you touch it! We'll send someone right over!"

Well apparently "right over = next day" and when the guy shows up he just pulls out a bog standard WD retail box and slips it in. Cost to the hospital (and of course I mean passed on tou you?)? $6000! That is right, they charged 6k for an $80 WD HDD. So if you want to know why your medical bill is so high? Well there is part of it right there. And according to him 2000%+ markups really ain't uncommon with the bunches making medical equipment. damn I wish I could get away with 2000% markup!