SCiO Pocket Molecular Scanner Teardown
Joel_E_B Introduction
The SCiO (pronounced ski-ō) is advertised as "the world’s first pocket-sized connected micro-spectrometer." Developed by San Francisco and Israel-based company Consumer Physics, the SCiO has been the topic of much debate on the internet for years. Some have lauded its attempts to bring spectrometry to the masses, while others have claimed that it cannot possibly do all the things it advertises.
SparkFun recently got its hands on some very affordable spectral imaging ICs, the AS7262 and the AS7263 from ams.
After playing around with the AS7262/3, we were curious to see what technology was used in handheld scanners such as the SCiO and to see if what was under the hood had the capabilities to really bring citizen science spectral analysis to the mainstream. We got our hands on a SCiO, and after playing around with it, we decided to tear it apart and see what was inside.