It's surprising because the electronics are essentially useless. Most people would expect the electronic version would have some type of advantage, because those electronics cost extra money to produce.
On a regular stripe test you are responsible to conduct the experiment and interpret the outcome which can be intimidating.
"Is there a line? I think I see a line? But it's fainter from the last time? What does it mean?"
This is replaced by an algorithm that's written by people who know what are they doing to save you from analysing a chemical reaction and have a straight answer.
edit: Just Google for "Is this pregnancy test positive" to see how many people are having trouble interpreting the results.
Here is an example from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TFABLinePorn/comments/4pxghm/confli...
Ironically, on this example the commenters claim that the inaccurate one is the digital one and the tester confirms. Anyway, the point stands: It is hard to interpret the outcome of chemical reactions.
OP is only two cycles into their pregnancy. A paper test can pick up on this tiny HCG measurement and show something. A digital test cannot because it's going to pick a higher threshold if it only wants to give you a binary result. A digital test will tell you that you're pregnant when you're far enough along for a paper test to be obvious.
There are so many "can someone interpret this paper test?" questions not because paper is inferior but because they are trying to interpret results 0-2 months into their pregnancy and paper can actually give you a faint reading here.
A digital test could support that by showing "possibly pregnant" which is back to the same UX, and showing "not pregnant" during this time isn't much of a win either.
If you’re well into a pregnancy, tests will actually start getting lighter due to how the tests work. It’s called the Hook Effect and can start happening around 5 weeks of pregnancy (https://www.captodayonline.com/Archives/0612/0612f_not_so_ob...).
The UX advantage comes from giving a definitive answer. The answer can change at later times when the body starts giving stronger signals. You can simply indicate that you need to wait X number of days to detect the pregnancy and problem solved.
This is much better UX than learning biology and chemistry to be able to read a test result. What does a faint line means? Probably means you need 4 years degree in a related field to have an educated guess. To have a definitive answer you need a to have a career in it.
Realistically though, it means you will need to ask someone who already have the degree, which means what good is the test for?
The digital test does guide you how to get to the right answer. Yes, if the threshold is too high and you test too early it can give you a false negative but this is a simple problem that can be solved by recommending a second test in few days.
The poster's question was about the conflict, not the interpretation of the chemical test.
>FRERs can pick up hCG as low as 7. Digitals require >40. Try with a digital in another week!
This seems to me like you're replacing an analogue, more precise reading with a binary, easier to read, imprecise reading?
Yeah, sure if you know what you are doing observing chemical reaction can be much better. It's like the difference between consumer tools and industrial tools.
Full manual espresso machines are superior from the perspective of a coffee nerd or professional. Nespresso machines with capsules are superior from the perspective of the person who wants the coffee but doesn't fancy learning making one.
The UX in this case is bad. Unnecessary and expensive fluff that obfuscates reality and gives a false sense of certainty to the user.
> On a regular stripe test you are responsible to conduct the experiment and interpret the outcome
The part of conducting the experiment is identical, I think, regardless of the type of test. You pee on it. Interpreting the results is not an issue. You simply need to observe with your eyes (a product of billions of years of evolution) if you have || or |+.
> save you from analysing a chemical reaction and have a straight answer
Again, you don't need to analyze a chemical reaction any more than the device does. The conclusion of the analysis is summed up in [1]. The whole point of the digital part is to read the lines on the paper. Whatever heuristics went into deciding how much reflected light should be interpreted as a | or a + are just as likely to be mistaken as a human eye reading would be.
The only pregnancy test intimidating reference I knew about so far was "omg, shit I am pregnant shit".
Also, for christ people, 16 years old were administrating these tests for years now, without there being massive social problem of confused woman. They just somehow managed to do them, even if their school results were very bad. So trying to claim they are somehow difficult to interpret is absurd.
The "analog" version is capable of displaying a value marginally above 0 and lets your eyes and brain decide or at least raise a flag. The digital test replaces your eyes with crappy photodiodes, and your (even 16 year old) brain with a crappy controller that just looks at a high threshold and decides "below=0".
I see people here saying that a digital is better because it reduces confusion. But it does so by discarding data. I'd take the debatable test every time, especially when for the money a digital one costs you can get multiple paper tests to do repeated checks.
Taking 5 papers tests is simple.
People will make claims about UX et al but they're more a side effect from companies marketing a pseudo-digital device to gullible customers rather than the original goal of the device. And I don't mean "gullible" in a negative way because I've fallen for this trick many times in the past too. If you don't know the hardware (and most wont) then you can't be blamed for trusting the marketing.
Ultimately though, if a digital readout reassures potential mums-to-be more than a paper strip then at least this device does serve a useful purpose beyond tricking people for a few extra dollars.
That could allow a more sensitive measurement than possible with the human eye.