Technologies Enable Rich Features for Wearables: Big Challenges for Small Devices

摘要

The design of wearable devices has moved beyond the basic functionalities of first-generation products. Simple communication,health-monitoring and position tracking are now considered routine. As wearable system developers embark on new designs, there are a treasure trove of new functionalities, performance levels and battery-life improvements being enabed by innovations in chip-level products from microcontroller (MCU) vendors, analog IC companies, IoT SoC providers and others. The next-gen of wearable devices are integrating ultra-wideband (UWB), energy harvesting, air quality monitoring and other new features. At the same time, they must meet the ever-present strict challenges inherent in wearable system designs. These include an extremely low budget for power consumption-and a requirement for rechargeability, because replaceable batteries aren't practical for wearables. Meanwhile, wearables demand some kind of wireless connectivity that doesn't eat up the power budget.