@Erica, or anyone really... Would "how does a digital pregnancy test work" be a good question for the site? Are "pre-parenting" questions on topic?

@JPhi1618 the basic concept on how it works isn't really parenting at all, but pre-parenting questions are on topic (ie pregnancy etc)

Ok, makes sense.

I suppose it may be of interest, but as google will let people know it works out some hormone percentages and does a calculation, then it's not high value

do you have one that could do with migration? If so, guessing this will be a better place than EE

(I'm assuming EE?)

Nah, I just took one apart the other day and was surprised at what I found.

@JPhi1618 see, now I'm interested

But I am an electronic engineer by degree

what is in it then?

You would think there's some complex magic going on, but it's just a regular "two lines" test strip sitting on top of LED's and a light sensor.

So the LEDs/sensor read the lines for you and turn it into the digital yes/no.

hahahahaha - brilliant

very Heath Robinson (or Rube Goldberg if you're that side of the pond)

I couldn't believe they added complexity to make it.

And whats worse for desperate women... If you take a negative one apart, it will very often have a faint second line.

@JPhi1618 oh, that's not good

The line needs to be darker for the LED, so having a faint, confusing to the naked eye line is not a big deal.

Ha, Rube Goldberg is exactly what I thought.

but the sales and marketing implies that the electronic one is more accurate than the old fashioned strip

Right. It's digital! It must be super high tech lab-on-a-chip stuff!

I guess its possible they are more sensitive (that faint negative line), but I'm not sold.

The wife doesn't know much about electronics, but also thought it was hilarious that its just a "digital strip reader".

@JPhi1618 hoping you didn't take it apart because you were nervous about a result? Of course the correct solution in those cases is to do another one a day or two later

repeat as necessary

Right. No, I just wanted to see how it worked, and possibly salvage the coin battery. I trusted the result.

The bottom of the test is actually made to easily break off so you can take out the battery before throwing it away (for recycling)

Anyway, it was worth getting pee on my hands to see what was in there.

somehow, I knew that was going to come up at some point :-)

I think more topical for us might be "is it more accurate" (which, based on your findings, may well be "NO"!) than how it works

Frankly, I'm also geeky enough to want to see that information on here SOMEHOW...

@Erica that's a good one - and a question that many will wonder about

Technically family planning isn't on topic, though. Hmmm.

Pregnancy is, trying to get pregnant is not -- where does "pregnancy test" fall on that spectrum? It's sort of the Schrodinger's Cat of Parenting.SE.

Yea, I thought wording it as more accurate...

Good tie to Schrodinger. Very apt.

I'm married to a physicist, so that comes up a surprising amount in our house :D