Wearables

The device, developed by research groups lead by Professor Takayasu Sakurai, Institute of Industrial Science, and Professor Takao Someya, Graduate School of Engineering, both University of Tokyo, combines a flexible amorphous silicon solar panel, piezoelectric speaker, temperature sensor, and power supply circuit created with organic components in a single flexible, wearable package.

Dialog Semiconductor has released details of its DA14680 compact ‘Wearable-on-Chip’ Bluetooth Smart (v4.2) low power IC, which enables the user to create a hosted wearable device. It features flexible processing power, flash memory for near-unlimited execution space, dedicated circuitry for sensor control, analogue and digital peripherals optimised for wearables, and an advanced power management unit.

Today’s mobile medical device simply needs to be connected securely and wirelessly to the enterprise to provide integration to the Electronic Health Record as well as to the mobile clinician. The 2015 healthcare environment provides many challenges such as the number of mobile users, the BYOD trend, the construction materials of the facility, the enterprise WLAN design and ultimately the performance characteristics of the WLAN enabled radio...

Broadcom has introduced a smartwatch platform that reduces power consumption for Android Wear devices. The platform offers OEMs more features, including GPS with sensor hub processing and wireless charging support. Broadcom will showcase its innovations for the mobile and carrier ecosystem at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 2nd to 5th March.

Toshiba has extended its ApP Lite family with two application processors for wearables, the TZ1031MBG and TZ1011MBG single package IoT solutions. Interest in services that monitor the duration and level of physical activity has exploded, which has increased demand for wearables such as activity monitors, smart watches, bracelets and spectacles, which promote exercise, improve nutrition and help prevent diseases related to lifestyle.

STMicroelectronics has announced its contribution to helping both casual weekenders and top-tier athletes keep their eyes on the prize while engaging in one of the world’s most popular activities. ST’s leading-edge technologies have enabled an innovative HUD monitor for swimmers from Instabeat that tracks, stores, and projects key information including heart rate and swimming speed on the goggles.

As consumers become increasingly dependent on wearables, circuit designers are tasked with incorporating advanced circuit protection technologies that safeguard the device as well as the user. Without proper protection, the device’s sensor circuits, battery-charging interfaces, buttons or data I/Os could be irreparably damaged by ESD that is often caused by close interaction with the user.