Wearable platforms target health and fitness applications
The evaluation and development platform is a wrist-worn heart-rate and activity monitor. It features the company’s MAX86140 optimized optical pulse-oximeter/heart-rate sensor, the MAX20303 wearable power-management solution, and Maxim’s motion-compensated algorithms.
The evaluation and development platform features the MAX30003 ultra-low-power, clinical-grade analog front end (AFE), which monitors ECG and heart-rate signals. It comes in two form factors — a wet electrode patch for clinical applications and a chest strap for fitness applications.
Many designers, says the company, face challenges developing good optical heart-rate solutions for health and fitness wearables as a result of the complexity involved in designing good optical solutions and motion-compensated algorithms. In addition, factors such as comfort, longer battery life, and reliable accuracy must also be addressed. The MAX-HEALTH-BAND and MAX-ECG-MONITOR evaluation and development platforms are designed to solve these challenges, the company says.
“With these end applications, software companies and startups can significantly accelerate time to market by using them right out of the box,” says Andrew Baker, executive director of the Industrial & Healthcare Business Unit at Maxim Integrated. “The MAX-HEALTH-BAND, for example, is a complete solution allowing customers to design a heart-rate and activity monitor in its entirety—using either their own algorithms or the one we created for them.”
The MAX-HEALTH-BAND can eliminate up to six months of design time, says the company. The platform’s heart-rate and activity tracker demonstrates system-level performance at the IC level and can be used to evaluate AFEs and power-management ICs (PMICs). It includes motion-compensated algorithms to extract useful data for health and fitness applications based on photoplethysmography (PPG) signals.
In addition, the MAX-HEALTH-BAND streams algorithm output and raw data from the health sensors via Bluetooth onto a smartphone app for customer algorithm development. Data provided includes heart rate, heart-rate variability (HRV), step count, and activity classification. For high accuracy, the heart-rate and activity monitor collects beat-to-beat physiological data about the heart.
The MAX-ECG-MONITOR analyzes data and accurately tracks ECG and heart rate to provide valuable insight to customers for clinical and fitness applications, and allows developers to run their own fitness or medical ECG-based applications and algorithms. It is part of the Movesense ecosystem for biometric and motion sensor solutions, and runs an open application programming interface (API) for developing unique in-device apps for various ECG-based use cases showing heart-rate signals at rest or during high motion activity.
The MAX-HEALTH-BAND is available at Maxim’s website for $200; includes Maxim’s motion-compensation algorithms as well as an Android-based app for a complete, wrist-worn activity-tracking solution; available for white-box license. The MAX-ECG-MONITOR is available for $150; includes an ECG module that can attach to the chest for fitness applications or wet electrode patches for clinical applications; available for white-box license.
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