First Warning Systems, a Nevada-based digital health startup that has raised $560,000 in funding, said it plans to launch a sensor product that can monitor early breast cancer in early 2015. First Warning Systems announced in late 2012 that it was developing a smart bra to monitor early breast cancer. The announcement generated a lot of public and media attention at the time, but First Warning Systems then faded from the limelight due to the many problems it faced in research and development and marketing. It was only in February last year that First Warning Systems made a comeback after appointing Rob Royea as its new CEO. This time, First Warning Systems’ product plan has been adjusted to use the same temperature change sensor as the previous smart bra, putting the sensor into a small device that can be placed into the user’s underwear and then connected to a smartphone. Roy said: “We no longer put the chip directly into the fabric as we did before, because the product needs to be reused. Now it can be put into underwear in a variety of fabrics, and it can also be connected to a smartphone, with all the information going directly to the big data back end.” The current gold standard for breast cancer detection is mammography, but the technology has limitations, such as inaccurate results, discomfort and also radiation. First Warning Systems sensors, on the other hand, can detect early breast cancer by monitoring small metabolic temperature changes caused by cancer cells. This temperature change information is sent to First Warning Systems’ global database, which is then analyzed by a specific algorithm, and the results are then sent back to the user’s cell phone. Tests have shown that the technology can detect breast cancer earlier than traditional techniques. The new product has yet to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and First Warning Systems plans to sell the product through two channels: direct sales to hospitals and direct sales to consumers through pharmacies. Roy also said the company plans to initially enter the product into the Asian market through Singapore, as the product has now received CE certification. And the U.S. launch date may not be until the end of 2015.