Auvis is a digital stethoscope with extended functions. Besides capturing sound emitted from organs like the lung or heart, Auvis is also able to detect sounds from the body's joints. The innovation in adding the auscultation of joints to the examination functions aims to detect arthrosis in an earlier stage than it is possible at present.

In an advanced stadium, arthrosis causes pain while moving, which can even lead to immobility. Especially the elderly are affected by this disease. First signs of the disease often stay undetected, even if they already appear at quite a young age. Early stages of cartilage degeneration - the starting point of arthrosis - can neither be seen on X-Ray or MRT methods. This results in arthrosis being diagnosed in a later stage, most likely when the patients already suffer pain or constrained mobility. Offering the possibility of integrating the examination of the joints into the preventive medical check-up, Auvis can diagnose arthrosis in an early stadium.

The degeneration of cartilage in the joints generates sounds that can be detected by specific sensors. Auvis captures these sounds emitted by the damaged cartilage and transmits them to the doctor. The doctor will then interpret the auditive output received by the stethoscope. In this way, medical treatment can be applied soon and does have better chances to succeed.

The Auvis stethoscope consists of two parts: Firstly, the examining tool, which records the sounds emitted by the joint or organs and secondly, the headpiece, which transmits the auditive output to the doctor. The wireless structure of Auvis allows the doctor to move unrestricted while examining the patient's body parts. Starting the preventive medical check-up, the doctor uses Auvis to check the health of the lung and the heart. The examination mode can be changed easily by turning the lower part of the tool, the mode currently active will be displayed by an interface. To bring out the cartilage's sounds during the auscultation of the joints - the knee joint, for example - the patient has to move the leg by bending it. Only the doctor will receive the auditive feedback generated by the stethoscope during auscultation, the patient will be excluded. If the doctor wishes to let the patient be part of the examination results, he can do so, by discussing them with the help of visual representation in a software. The detected auditory outputs from the stethoscope will be analyzed by the software in a first step, and then put together into a 3D model of the patient's joint. Thereby, the doctor and their patient can review cartilage or joint damage visually. Furthermore, the results can be saved and taken for comparison in the next preventive check-up. The combination of auditive and visual feedback is where the project title comes from. AUVIS: AUditive and VISual.

Besides the medical benefits, the design of Auvis furthermore respects the stethoscope being an important status symbol for the medical staff. Therefore, the design is related to the aesthetics of an analog stethoscope but put into a more innovative and smart framework, giving it the ability to create a new stereotype.