Is CoughPro always listening?
About Joe Brew
Joe Brew, cofounder and CEO of Hyfe, has been discussing the company's cough-tracking technology in several interviews and explainer videos. He described how the CoughPro app uses a phone's microphone to detect explosive sounds, saves a 0.5-second audio clip, and categorizes it as cough or non-cough using an on-device AI model. Brew stated that the audio is processed locally and deleted immediately, with only the timestamp of a detected cough being saved. He compared the app's listening behavior to voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, saying it listens only for cough-like sounds rather than recording general audio. In podcast appearances, Brew discussed Hyfe's focus on cough as a prevalent symptom across chronic conditions and infectious diseases. He noted that the company initially developed the app for COVID-19 monitoring but found that chronic cough patients became the primary users. Brew described Hyfe's business model as B2B, licensing its algorithms to researchers and pharmaceutical companies, while keeping the consumer app free. He also mentioned conducting validation trials and having pre-submission meetings with the FDA regarding medical clearance. Brew expressed interest in using acoustic data for early outbreak detection and tuberculosis screening, and he emphasized the importance of measuring cough objectively rather than relying on patient self-reporting.