A new device hopes to make those cases easier to diagnose by taking advantage of the powers of your smartphone.

Like the Peek Portable Eye Exam Kit, CellScope's Oto Home is a medical device that attaches to your smartphone; in this case, it's an otoscope—the black conical doohickey that doctors use to look at your ear. While the Oto Home can't itself tell you whether or not someone is suffering from an ear infection, its companion app lets you take a video of the ear and send it to a medical professional, who can then hopefully diagnose the condition—and potentially even prescribe treatment.

That provides a number of benefits, such as not having to tote a crying child to the doctor's office where you wait interminably for your appointment. Instead, CellScope aims to have a response for you within two hours, which is probably less time than it would take to drive to the doctor's office, go through the appointment, and drive back.