A new gadget called the Scio promises a breakthrough in nutrition awareness for owners of the device. A closer look, however, shows the utilization of the gadget in real-life situations may prove difficult.

By now, most everybody knows about fitness bands and other mobile gadgets or smartphone accessories that can tell wearers how many calories they've burned in a day or during a workout. There are tons of mobile apps that can provide specific nutrition information for thousands of food items upon entering the name of the munchies one desires to have analyzed.

Until now, however, there hasn't been a handheld consumer device that can actually scan food items on the spot and provide nutritional details. Enter the Scio, the $249 Kickstarter gadget that reached its fundraising goals and is set to debut next year.

The Scio utilizes near-infrared spectroscopy that analyzes light reflected by the food item and then identifies it from a huge database. Since each food item carries a unique molecular signature, the Scio can pinpoint exactly what it's aiming at and report the results via Bluetooth to its user via their smartphone and a dedicated app. The Scio, therefore, doesn't actually determine the nutritional content of the item itself; it only identifies what the item is so it can match up preloaded nutritional information.

That's where the catch comes in: to determine the actual amount of calories, carbohydrates, protein and other elements of a food's nutritional worth, the user needs to know the item's weight. That means, even if accurate, utilization of the device is limited and excludes situations in which it would be of most value, for example, analyzing a restaurant or takeout meal.

If the user does have a scale handy, or a packaged item that indicates the weight of its contents, all they have to do is enter the food item name and its weight into one of the many easy-to-use free smartphone apps designed for just that purpose. In fact, that process might even prove more accurate in situations where a food item consists of various separate layers or combinations that cannot be accurately measured using the Scio. For example, when aimed at a slice of pizza with various toppings, the device might misread or altogether miss some components.

The device's promised uses beyond food in analyzing other items, such as plants and pills, sound interesting, and we'll have to wait until the Scio comes out on the market next year to assess its accuracy in analyzing them in addition to complex food combinations. For now, nutrition-conscious consumers can discover the same nutrition information promised by Scio by simply using a smartphone app and one of the most highly-developed scanning devices in existence — their own eyes.