Reference designs help connect medical weight scales

With the increase in demand for health-related information, connected weight scales can now send data to smartphones, tablets, and the Cloud where it can be utilised by medical providers and other caregivers.

Connected weight scales are being used with other home-based consumer and medical devices to improve the health and general well-being of many people.

Microchip provides a complete family of eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology PIC microcontrollers with sleep currents as low as 9 nA and the flexibility of integrated 8-bit, 10-bit, and 12-bit ADCs.

This is a free graphical programming environment that generates seamless, easy to understand C code that is inserted into a user’s project.

Using an intuitive interface, it enables and configures a rich set of peripherals and functions. It is integrated into MPLAB X IDE to provide a powerful and easy to use development platform.

Lower BOM costs and less design complexity are enabled by the integration of coherent peripherals, like built-in LCD drive, touch-sensing capability, and other associated features, in most of the popular MCU families.

Microchip’s connected weight scale demonstration board shows the implementation of a Bluetooth-connected weight scale using Microchip’s PIC16F1783 MCU and the RN42 Bluetooth module.

The PIC16F1783 MCU is an XLP, cost-effective 8-bit microcontroller with an integrated capacitive touch sensing module, 12-bit ADC, operational amplifiers, and Bluetooth connectivity solutions making it ideal for weight scale medical applications.