Imagine being able to tell at a moment’s notice how many calories and grams of fat are in food that do not include nutritional fact labels. Thanks to Consumer Physics’ SCiO “pocket molecular sensor,” a device that fits on your keychain and can provide nutritional information behind food, plants, and medication with a quick scan, dieting could become more convenient than we once expected.

The technology behind the SCiO device is three years in the making based on a near-IR spectroscopy method, which creates a unique optical signature using molecule vibration’s interaction with a light source. A light source produced by the SCiO, known as a spectrometer, acts as an optical sensor by collecting nutritional information through the interaction between the light and molecules. Information is quickly uploaded to your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Although this type of technology can regularly cost around tens of thousands of dollars, by minimizing the spectrometer's size and designing it for mass production, Consumer Physics is close to bringing spectrometer technology to dieters at a fraction of the cost. To help with some of the cost in SCiO’s R&D department and bringing consumers in on the ground floor, Consumer Physics’ CEO Dror Sharon has launched a KickStarter account that has already surpassed its initial goal of $200,000 and is well on its way to a new goal of $2,000,000.

“SCiO has been in development for several years already,” the company said on its KickStarter page. We’ve successfully built multiple working prototypes and are now ready to bring SCiO to consumers around the world. We chose Kickstarter because we think it’s an amazing platform for bringing innovative, new products to market. The Kickstarter platform helps us facilitate interactive conversations with future users. By backing our project in Kickstarter, you are helping finance the initial production and manufacturing costs, in turn ensuring that we can offer SCiO at the lowest price possible.”

Consumers can choose how much they would like to pledge and can receive special rewards for their donation. For example, a donation of $35 will receive a SCiO t-shirt in return. Early adopters who donate $199 will be the first to receive a SCiO device as soon as it is available for mass production. Sharon expects the keychain-sized calorie counter will sell for a couple of hundred dollars when it does become available, Fast Company reported.