How to shave six months off the development cycle of medical wearables?

How long does it take to develop a prototype of a medical-grade smart wearable device with blood oxygen, electrocardiogram, heart rate, body temperature and activity data? A year? The answer given by David Maliniak from Maxim Integrated is six months!

The most important reason is to leverage Maxim's Health Sensor Platform 3.0 (HSP 3.0), also known as MAXREFDES104#, a ready-made wrist-shaped reference design that monitors blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate (HR), body temperature, and motion. The included algorithms provide heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory rate (RR), SpO2, body temperature, sleep quality, and clinical-level stress information. It allows wearable developers to start differentiated development immediately, saving at least 6 months of time compared to prototyping these devices from scratch. Designed for wrist shape, HSP 3.0 can be adapted to other dry electrode shapes such as chest patches and smart rings.

Compared with its predecessor, Health Sensor Platform 2.0 (HSP2.0), HSP3.0 adds optical SpO2 measurement and dry electrode capabilities. It can help terminal solutions increase monitoring of heart and respiratory problems to manage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), infectious diseases (such as COVID-19), sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation (AFib), etc. Compared with previous generations, HSP 3.0's narrower form factor and enhanced optical structure improve signal acquisition quality, and upgrade the microcontroller, power supply, security and sensor chips. The reference design includes a complete optical and electrode design, as well as algorithms that meet clinical requirements.

HSP 3.0 (MAXREFDES104) includes the following sensors, power management, microcontroller, and algorithms:

•The MAX86176 is a low-noise photoplethysmography (PPG) and ECG analog front end (AFE) that provides 110 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for increased SpO2 detection capability and more than 110 dB common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) for dry-electrode ECG applications.

•The MAX20360 is a highly integrated power and battery management IC (PMIC) optimized for advanced human health sensing devices.

•The MAX32666 is an ultra-low-power microcontroller with Bluetooth (BLE) support, featuring two Arm Cortex-M4F cores and an additional SmartDMA that allows independent operation of the BLE stack, leaving the two main cores available for primary tasks.

•The MAX32670 is an ultra-low-power microcontroller dedicated to Maxim's PPG algorithms, including pulse rate, SpO2, HRV, RR, sleep quality monitoring, and stress monitoring.

•The MAX30208 is a low-power, high-accuracy digital temperature sensor in a small 2 mm x 2 mm package. It consumes 33% less operating current than the closest competing solution.

HSP 3.0 can be ordered on Maxim Integrated's website and includes hardware, firmware, and algorithms.