Smart Stethoscopes

Eko Health, Eko Devices Inc., Lapsi Health, Canon Inc. and Contec Medical Systems Co. are among the organizations active in smart stethoscopes. Eko develops AI-enabled devices and tele-auscultation tools, while Lapsi Health is developing the Keikku electronic stethoscope. Canon’s patent activity includes electronic auscultation designs using optical sensing to measure diaphragm movement.

The listed startup set contains 7 organizations, including Eko Devices Inc., Lapsi Health and Heroic Faith Medical Science Co. Eko Devices develops AI-enabled electronic stethoscopes and remote listening tools. Lapsi Health is developing Keikku, while Heroic Faith Medical Science has patented network-connected systems. The available facts identify activity, not a comparative ranking of commercial promise.

Imperial College London, University of Cambridge and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are prominent research participants. Imperial researchers developed an AI-enabled stethoscope for identifying serious heart conditions, and the technology is being evaluated clinically. Cambridge researchers study AI analysis of heart sounds for earlier detection of heart-valve disease, including through the ACOUTECT project.

Smart-stethoscope-related records list $20,564,990 in grant funding across 24 grants since 2020. The funding-round data separately lists 5 rounds totaling $714,280,932, but does not show that these amounts were specifically raised for smart-stethoscope development. Treat the round total cautiously when assessing funding for this technology.

Canon Inc. leads the listed patent holders with 14 patents; Murata Manufacturing Co. and Lapsi Health each have 4. Eko Health has 3, as does Decentralized Biotechnology Intelligence Co. Canon’s portfolio includes electronic auscultation devices that detect body vibrations, including designs using optical sensing to measure diaphragm movement.

The 24-month view lists 77 patents, while patent growth is -28.9%. This indicates a decline in patent activity under the stated comparison, even as publication activity has risen. The figures describe activity in the defined window; they do not establish whether commercial adoption or clinical use is increasing or decreasing.

Recent developments include Eko Health’s CORE 300 launch in October 2026 and an October 2026 publication on an all-fiber wireless auscultation garment. The garment research explores continuous cardiopulmonary monitoring. In February 2026, reports described University of Cambridge research into AI-assisted detection of heart-valve disease in primary care, reflecting a parallel focus on earlier screening.

Applications include primary care, cardiac screening, respiratory diagnosis, remote and home care, and veterinary medicine. Examples in recent research include wearable lung-sound recording to assess asthma control in children and electronic stethoscope monitoring of vascular access in hemodialysis patients. The range extends from frontline screening to monitoring specific conditions, though evidence and device suitability vary by use.

The main approaches are digital acoustic capture, AI sound interpretation, multimodal sensing, connected auscultation and continuous acoustic monitoring. Capture improves access to recorded sounds; AI attempts to classify them; multimodal systems combine signals; connected devices support remote review; and wearables collect sounds over time. Each has different trade-offs in sound quality, validation, connectivity or motion-related noise.

The United States leads the listed activity with 2,916 documents, followed by the United Kingdom with 908. India, Japan, Germany and China also appear among the countries with substantial recorded activity. These figures indicate where documents originate in the dataset, not the size of national markets or the level of clinical adoption.