Maxim’s Ultra-Small hSensor Platform Enables Quick and Easy Design for Wearable Health and Fitness Applications

Designers of health, wellness, and high-end fitness applications can quickly and easily validate next-generation solutions with the ultra-small hSensor Platform from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (NASDAQ: MXIM).

Creating a custom board with sensors can be complex, as designers must first build custom hardware and firmware to validate their concepts and then build prototypes before starting any field trials. From there, they generally spend a significant amount of time evaluating sensors and existing solutions. Maxim’s hSensor Platform eliminates the extra 3-6 months it typically takes to develop a prototype by bringing all the hardware building blocks together on one PCB, as well as having readily-accessible hardware functionality with the ARM mbed hardware development kit (HDK).

The hSensor Platform, offered as the MAXREFDES100# reference design, includes an hSensor board, complete firmware with drivers, a debugger board, and a graphical user interface (GUI). With access to firmware source code on Maxim’s website, the platform allows designers to load algorithms for different use cases and adapt to their specific applications. Customers can download the firmware to optimize designs, enable faster evaluations, and significantly reduce time to market. The hSensor Platform is the only complete development platform available today and is ideal for health, wellness, and high-end fitness applications such as chest straps, ECG patches, wrist-worn devices, thermometers, disposable temperature patches, blood oxygen measurement, smart weigh scales, and bio authentication. For example, one can design a wearable patch to continuously record ECG on a single CR2032 battery for twice as long compared to today’s existing solutions—a power savings of more than 50%.

The hSensor Platform includes the following products:

• MAX30003: Ultra-low power, single-channel integrated biopotential AFE
• MAX30101: High-sensitivity pulse oximeter and heart-rate sensor
• MAX30205: Industry’s only clinical grade temperature sensor
• MAX32620: Ultra-low power ARM^® Cortex^®-M4F microcontroller optimized for wearables
• MAX14720: Industry’s lowest quiescent current power management integrated circuit (PMIC)
• Additional content: Inertial sensors (3-axis accelerometer, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope), barometric pressure sensor, flash memory, and BLE radio

Key Advantages

• Quickly validate your concept: Fully working hardware and firmware cuts design time by up to six months
• Fast time to market: Build on top of existing hardware and firmware to quickly wrap up your hardware design
• ARM mbed support: For efficient evaluation and rapid application prototyping, the mbed environment provides a high level of abstraction to eliminate maintenance of software tools and provide an extensive library of open source software
• Complete solution: Compact, ultra-small solution (25.4mm x 30.5mm) provides all you need in one place without having to access multiple sources; runs on coin cell; allows data to be monitored over Bluetooth low energy, stored in flash, or streamed via USB

Commentary

• “With Maxim’s hSensor Platform, we’ve taken a very complex measurement process and made it simple and streamlined,” said Matt Banet, Chief Scientific Officer at toSense. “It offers an easy-to-use development kit which we have successfully implemented into our own hardware platform.”
• “Maxim is committed to the wearables market, and the hSensor Platform is a testament to this commitment,” said Andrew Baker, Executive Director for Industrial and Healthcare Products at Maxim Integrated. “As we continue to develop solutions for new applications, we will expand the platform to support specific use cases.”
• “This new platform from Maxim will save designers from the tedious process of creating a custom board from scratch,” said Susie Inouye, Research Director at Databeans. “Enabling technology such as this is also key for driving costs down which will engage more consumers, particularly in the fitness application market where price point is still hindering demand.”

Availability and Pricing for MAXREFDES100#

• The MAXREFDES100# reference design is available for $150 at Maxim’s website and select franchised distributors. Hardware and firmware files are provided free and available online.
• For information on other reference designs, visit https://bit.ly/ReferenceDesigns.

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