The good and the bad. – Kinsa Review

The little thermometer itself is inexpensive and works quickly to give you a reading. I like the machine. I’ve had this since 2019 I think. That being said, the next time the battery dies, I’m going to find another device. That’s a pity because it’s another working piece of technology that will end up in the recycling bin. When I first got the thermometer I downloaded the app and it connected right away. I think I created an account so that the app would transfer readings to the Apple Health app. With each update the application kept getting more and more invasive. I started questioning why the app needed my location and what exactly was going on with the data. Was the data remaining local to my phone or was it being collected? Because I didn’t really know, I turned off all the information sharing that I could. The application still ran, but was always complaining about those services being unavailable. However the app still did what I asked it to, it transferred the data to the Apple Health app. Last year my brother sent me a screenshot of a map he’d downloaded from Kinsa that showed how many people were running fevers in my local area and what the high, low, and average temperatures were. This was at the height of COVID and the rise of Delta. I immediately was concerned about how the data was being used or misused. I rechecked the settings on my phone and they were still off. The application was still working and all was well. This thermometer sits in my medicine cabinet 99% of the time unused. I am fortunate that I don’t get sick often, or stay sick. I don’t have any conditions that require constant monitoring and am not a hypochondriac. Primarily I record health data in the Apple Health app so that I can refer to it when I see my Doctor once a year. It’s nice to have the data at my fingertips and serves as a way to jog my memory when the Doc asks me questions about my health and how I’ve been during the year. It’s convenient to have the readings from the thermometer automatically plugged into the Apple Health app since If I’m down with a cold or feverish I’m not all that diligent about making data entries. That’s my use case. It’s simple, I don’t need online advice, I don’t need a bunch of static I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions. If I’m taking my temperature I obviously don’t feel well, so I didn’t like the feeling that I was being interrogated by the Kinsa App. Imagine my frustration at going to the medicine cabinet picking up the thermometer and taking my temperature today. The thermometer confirmed what I’d suspected, that I’m running a fever. When I brought the application up, I’m confronted with a prompt to upgrade to the new application. I told the app that I just wanted to use the old app. It refused to activate. I swipe killed the app and restarted it. Again the upgrade prompt and again I couldn’t get past it. Fine! I’ll upgrade to the new app. I download it, it installs, and then wants me to log in. The new app knows the old app is still loaded on the phone, but it’s asking for a login. I’m completely unsure what that login is at the moment. I don’t care! Then the app starts telling me that it wants to use my location data, and other personal data and implies that it will not work without this data being provided. Uhhh NO! Downing a couple of aspirin and a glass of water, I start looking at the privacy information. (THANK YOU APPLE! For making manufacturers disclose that data). I’ve deleted the updated Kinsa Application. And I’ve deleted the old version too. I don’t believe it’s reasonable for a manufacturer of a thermometer to be collecting the kind of data Kinsa collects. I don’t think that my sharing of that data adds anything to the functionality of the thermometer or the application. The last thing I’m interested in is having some COVID public health officials banging on my door simply because I’m running a fever. Nor do I need contact / exposure tracing backdoored via a thermometer application when I’ve specifically opted out of the contact tracing app on my phone. I haven’t left my home in more than 4 weeks. So if I’ve been exposed to COVID it had to come from a delivery and there’s nothing that can be done about that. What’s done is done! It’s far more likely that something I ate may have triggered a slight allergic reaction. Probably something had Salmon oil in it. Since aside from the low-grade fever, I have no other symptoms. See, not everything is COVID! Kinsa, we’re done. I’ll be entering the temperature data into the health app manually. As soon as I can remember where the user name and password is, I’m going to log in to your site and DEMAND that you flush all data that is associated with me.
Review by wwducat on Kinsa.