SCiO Pocket Molecular Scanner Teardown
Joel_E_B 
Unboxing and Initial Thoughts
The SCiO was unboxed promptly upon receipt. Inside was the device, a stand that doubles as a housing for scanning small items such as pills, a small shade spacer for controlling the light source purity, a microUSB cable and a couple of booklets, including a Quick Start guide.
The functionality of the SCiO was tested before the teardown took place. Taking spectral scans of items really was easy right from the get-go, and the sleek design and small form factor left a lasting first impression.
However, it soon became clear that what was delivered was a hardware platform with very little software or app support. The SCiO app, while sleek and easy to use, seemed rather bare in terms of functionality. Many of capabilities promised in SCiO promotional material was very unpolished or nonexistent, such as the fruit scanning applet having only about a half dozen fruits to choose from. Writing the applets for scanning various items has been mostly left up to the users and developers. While the tools to create your own applets exist, it would have been nice to have a larger selection of items to scan out of the box.
Particularly conspicuous was the absence of any sort of plant-scanning applet. As the resident aquaponics enthusiast here at SparkFun, that was one of the major features that attracted me to the SCiO in the first place: being able to scan plant leaves and derive plant health data from the spectral image.
That said, there were still lots of applets to play with in the app. The fruit and vegetable scanner was fun, though the number of fruits and veggies listed in the database was smaller than expected. Other food items that had applets included meats, cheeses and chocolate.
The body fat index applet was another fun one to play with. Scanning your skin and entering basic data about yourself allows you to get a rough estimate from the device calculating your body fat percentage. While the data coming back from the device seemed like it could be accurate, it was hard to confirm.
It would seem that, for now, creating useful applications using this hardware is left in the hands of the community.