A new over-the-counter device that works with your smartphone will warn you if your asthma is about to flare.

The FDA recently approved the device, called Wing. Wing attaches to your smartphone and measures your lung function.

Wing has a sensor that monitors your asthma zones. The pocket-sized device includes a mouthpiece. The Wing app collects and analyzes the data from the lung test.

The company that developed it, Sparo Labs, is based in St. Louis, Missouri.
The AAFA St. Louis Chapter played a role in testing Wing and promoting its development.

Abby Cohen, one of the co-founders of Sparo Labs, said the idea behind Wing is to gather daily information from people with asthma. Results show how lungs are performing. People with asthma can work with their doctor to adjust their medication or adjust activities so that they get back into a safe zone.

Ms. Cohen began following doctors in college as part of a research project. She began to understand how respiratory diseases, like asthma, affected people every day.

“One of the things that I saw was that patients with asthma were forced to play this waiting game – not knowing when they may experience their next asthma attack, which was a scary thing to leave up to chance, especially for parents who had children with asthma,” said Ms. Cohen. “We began developing Wing to empower people to proactively control asthma and prevent an asthma attack.”

Ms. Cohen sits on the board of AAFA St. Louis, one of the five Regional Chapters of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Sparo Labs supports the chapter’s special events. AAFA St. Louis helped to test Wing when it was under development.

The company expects to launch Wing this fall on its website. The first version of the app is for iOS. Ms. Cohen said she hopes an Android version will launch in spring 2017.