If you find how to use the PlusLife home Covid test confusing, you’re not alone. That’s why we created our Pluslife quick reference card! The Pluslife home Covid test is the most accurate PCR-quality home test out there. With a 99%+ accuracy, you can be confident that a negative result is truly negative, and not a false negative. It’s also the most sensitive home test, which means that it can detect a Covid infection before any of the other home tests, and even before any symptoms develop. And when you combine it with the Virus Sucks “app”, you have all the information you need to know whether someone may be contagious before any other test may catch it, even if they are asymptomatic!
[Don’t have your PlusLife yet? Order it here from Altruan. Don’t let the cost of the device throw you off, once you have the device the tests themselves are under $10 each.]
Even though the steps are straightforward, the instructions are less straightforward than they could be. We wished that there was a simple quick reference guide that you could have on your phone. So we made one for ourselves! And now we are sharing it with you! (The downloadable Pluslife quick reference image is at the bottom of this post, feel free to grab it!) However, it’s also one of the most needlessly confusing and so therefore unfortunately daunting tests to figure out how to use, and to remember how to use.
Now, this Pluslife quick reference card assumes that you have already familiarized yourself with the Pluslife test reader (called the “mini dock”) and the various components of the test kits (i.e. the thing you use to do the test, like the nasal swab). Still, here is a quick overview:
A Quick Overview of the Components of the Pluslife Covid Test
We already mentioned that the reader – i.e. the thing that actually runs the test – is called the “mini dock”. This is, we surmise, because the Pluslife was actually developed for medical use, and so there is a full size dock for running Pluslife tests in a medical facility. The mini dock is for home use.
Pluslife Mini Dock
We would be remiss if we didn’t say something about the plug. The Pluslife comes with two USB cables: one which you can use to connect the dock to your computer (which is one of two ways you can use the app – more about the app below), and one which you use to connect to a power source. (You cannot> power the Pluslife through the computer connection, that is for data only.) It also comes with a USB wall plug into which you can connect the USB power cord, however it is a European plug and does not work in the U.S..
The device is very sensitive to electromagnetic interference. We don’t recommend using an adapter and we don’t recommend plugging the USB power cable into a U.S. wall power square because, as virus.sucks advises “The device is very sensitive to electromagnetic interference.” They recommend, and we recommend, and anecdotally what works best, is using a power bank (also known as a power brick, such as you would use to charge your mobile device when away from home). To make sure that you get one that has enough power (the Pluslife will fail if it is under-powered), we recommend this one (this is not an affiliate link, we make no money off it): https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Portable-Charger-Compatible-MacBook/dp/B0C9CJKCH3.
View of Back of Pluslife Mini Dock
The actual individual tests come in bulk, packed 10 to a box, with the various components bundled together. So for example, when you open the box of tests there will be a strip of 10 swabs, then a plastic bag with 10 of the vials with the test solution into which you insert the swabs, and 10 of the test “cards” which are the carriers which you insert into the mini dock once you drip the solution into the card.
Pluslife Test Kit Components
Anatomy of a Pluslife Test Card
A Word About Viral Load
All of this is a numbers game: it’s all about viral load. When we talk about test sensitivity we are talking about how high the viral load (number of virion) needs to be before the test will reliably detect the virus. It’s sort of like “How much water has to be leaking from your ceiling before you notice it?” If it’s just a drop at a time you are less likely to notice it than if water suddenly came gushing through a hole in your ceiling). Rapid tests need gushing virion. The Pluslife not only detects tiny drops, but with the virus.sucks app it detects teeny tiny numbers of drops – in other words the virus.sucks app detects the faintest of viral load, before it can become a gusher.
Using the Pluslife Test
Basically you plug the mini dock in and press the power button; it will beep and blink, and then go through it’s power up cycle. While it’s powering up you get out a test card, solution vial, and swab.
Once the light stops blinking (it can take about 2 minutes) you open a swab, swab your nose, and stir it around in the vial (pinching the tip of the swab through the vial (it’s soft plastic) a few times while stirring).
Then you screw the little blue dropper top onto the vial, and use that to drip the solution into the test card. This is where you have to be very careful to only put in enough of the solution as to come up between the two lines, not below, and not above, but between, and they are very hard to see because they are just molded into the card, so they are clear!
Then you replace the cap on the card, and make sure that the little round cavities on the card (Pluslife calls them “chambers”, we call them “channel reservoirs”) are all filled with solution. The instructions with the Pluslife say to wait 15 seconds after screwing the cap onto the card, then press down on the center of the cap (it has a little sort of plunging action). That 15 seconds allows gravity do its thing first, then plunge when you see the little cavities are already mostly filled. The whole point is to avoid bubbles in the cavities. Then you shake the card quickly 10 times, and then put it in the dock reader (it only fits one way) and close the lid.
If you are just running the test without the Virus.Sucks app, then just push the button and let the dock do its thing. But if you want to use the Virus.Sucks app with your Pluslife then don’t press the button yet because you will start the test running from the Virus.Sucks app.
Basically, if you use the dock without the virus.sucks app, you will get a binary test result: positive or negative. Either a virus is detected, or it isn’t.
NOTE: If you are using a multivirus test (such as the Pluslife Covid/FluA/FluB test) without the app then you will simply get a “positive” result if any of the three are detected, and you won’t know which one. For that reason, after getting a positive result on the Covid/FluA/FluB test (without the app so we can’t know which one was detected), we then run a second test using a Covid-only test, if it’s positive you know that the Covid/FluA/FluB detected Covid; if it’s negative then you know that the first test detected FluA or FluB. While yes, you are then using up a second test, the Covid-only tests are only about $8 each.
About the Virus.Sucks App
The very first thing that you need to know is that the Virus.Sucks app is actually not an app, at least not in the way that you are probably thinking “app”. It is not an app that you download onto your phone. It is an app in the sense that it is an application. You go to the app in a browser, either on your computer, or with a special browser that will work with Bluetooth on your phone (that phone browser is called Bluefy and that is an app, which you get from the app store).
You can connect your Pluslife mini dock to your computer with the USB cable that came with your Pluslife. If you are doing this, then just use your computer’s browser to go to virus.sucks/pluslife_app and it will detect that your dock is connected.
The Virus.Sucks app gives you access to way more data about what the test is finding, and the developer who made it maintains it and provides access to it for free! (Huge thanks to you guys!) What the virus.sucks app does is let you see what is going in with each individual channel, and whether the Pluslife is detecting the presence of a virus in each separate channel. It also lets you see what it’s detecting in real-time. If you are using a multi-virus test, such as Covid+RSV+FluA+FluB, then each channel’s data will correspond to a specific virus. All but one of the lines in the app will stay relatively flat if everything is negative; if it is positive it will start to rise. There is also always a control line, which is green. That line will go up because it’s detecting, you know, life.
Example Virus.Sucks App Covid Test Results, Green is Control, the Others are Negative
Now, with the regular Pluslife Covid test, there is one control channel, and the other 6 channels are detecting whether or not Covid is present. This is one of the things that makes the Pluslife so sensitive and accurate. With the Pluslife Covid/FluA/FluB test, the six detection channels are divided up and two channels are detecting Covid, two are detecting FluA, and two are detecting FluB. This is why the Pluslife multitest is slightly less sensitive at detecting Covid (but only slightly).
For the Pluslife Covid/FluA/FluB test Channel 4 is the control; Channels 2 and 6 are Covid, Channels 3 and 5 are FluA, and Channels 1 and 7 are FluB
Example Virus.Sucks App Covid/FluA/FluB Test Results, Green is Control, the Others are Negative
How to Connect to Your Pluslife with the Virus.Sucks App via Bluetooth
You can also connect the Virus.Sucks app to your Pluslife mini dock using Bluetooth on your computer, and also using the Bluefy browser on your phone, but only if you have one of the units manufactured before the more recent batches! If you have a brand new Pluslife mini dock and have been tearing your hair out trying to figure out why you can’t get it to work with Bluetooth it’s because there is a known issue with the Bluetooth on the newer mini docs – it is unstable at best, and essentially non-existent at worst.
To tell whether the Bluetooth is working on your Pluslife mini dock power it up, and while it’s powering up either open the Virus.Sucks app on your computer, or open the Bluefy browser on your phone (of course make sure that Bluetooth is enabled on your phone). If you have a Pluslife unit with an actual working Bluetooth chip, the Bluefy browser will find it. You do not have to go into your phone’s Bluetooth settings to add it or discover it; the Bluefy browser will automatically discover it if it has a working Bluetooth chip.
Whether you are connected via USB or Bluetooth, press the ‘start’ button in the Virus.Sucks app and the test will start running.
Here is the Downloadable Quick Reference Card for the Pluslife
Note: This card has been updated with the assistance of the awesome Tara Hernandez!
On a computer right-click or control-click on the image to download it. On a phone long-press on the image to download it to your phone
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Thanks so much for this! I just tried my first test but now have a question — I filled the test card up to the point between the two lines as described here, but then when the channel reservoirs filled up, that seemed to bring the amount of liquid down below the two lines again. I’m assuming that’s to be expected, and I’m not supposed to add more liquid to get it back up to the point between the lines?
Correct, don’t refill. 🙂
Great read, great pdf, great device.
So grateful for the PDF instructions in accessible terms!