Name a technology that is more useful, more educational, more interesting, and more overpriced than a ultrasound machine. You can look inside of living things without the need for a powerful magnets or radioactivity and it is basically made from a speaker and microphone outputting to a screen.

A transducer is a ceramic with two pieces of metal on either side, if you squeeze the transducer it creates a current, if you put a current into the metal it moves the transducer. An ultrasound machine requires a dozen or more MHz frequency transducers formed into an array to get the required resolution. The preferred ceramic for a MHz transducer seems to be Lead zirconate titanate or PZT.

The software may be very expensive, but this is probably because ultrasound machines are each running closed source custom software. If there were a standard hardware platform to make ultrasound software for, with standards and API’s I am sure this would reduce the cost for each machine significantly. There are efforts like this open architecture for ultrasound control, but I am unsure of how much adoption they have.

https://maori.geek.nz/why-are-ultrasound-machines-so-expensive-623ce91d8402#.o2955iksl

And very interesting response from guy who service capitalists

The premise of the article is "Why is even a cheap ultrasound system over $30,000 when I can buy the bits and pieces for next to nothing and it's really easy to make? It's not that hard, I looked into it for a couple of hours!". While a premium ultrasound system with transducers can be $150,000 or more (a fraction of the price of CT and MRI systems) it's the most common medical imaging modality in the world for a reason - so allow me to refute this position that it's simple and overpriced.

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/12/why-are-medical-ultrasound-systems-so.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/12/medical-ultrasound-systems-pt-ii-where.html

Guy so smartly hide blatant lie under technical smart looking details.

Simple version of true response:

1. Medical ultrasound machines are high marginal items, part of margins are used as payments to smooth contracts, etc
2. Medical manufacturers protect even simplest things with patents, for any competition to overcome them it cost big money.
3. Lot of manufactured items can stay for long time due to competition or can be even destroyed. All this cost add up.
4. Almost each manufacturer repeat software development and core items development. Add huge gain to manufacturing cost.
5. It is manufacturers who actually pay to politicians and local medical board and force costly certifications, as certifications allow to protect local markets. All this parasites cost also add up.

I can list here many other points.