With connected medical devices one of the most exciting aspects of the growing Internet of Things, we caught up with Qardio, a company in the business of making smart wearable heart health monitors. Rosario Iannella, Chief Technology Officer at Qardio, discusses the benefits CSR’s Bluetooth® Smart technology brings to the company’s latest device, the QardioArm, and his thoughts for how the smart medical devices market will evolve.
CSR: You recently launched the QardioArm blood pressure monitor, which uses the CSR1010™. What’s exciting about the device?
Qardio: QardioArm is a blood pressure monitor with a revolutionary design and effortless user experience that conveniently fits the modern lifestyle. The idea behind the product was to create a medical device that looks like an everyday object and is simple and convenient to have around at all times for daily measurements.
“We looked at different parameters like throughput, power consumption, module design and the completeness of the Bluetooth stack feature set. CSR performed better on every one of these points.” – Rosario Iannella, CTO, Qardio
CSR: When developing the QardioArm what were the top five things you wanted to achieve?
Qardio: We wanted QardioArm to be easy to use, comfortable, clinically validated with safe data transfer and to have a long battery life. All of this has been possible with the use of CSR’s Bluetooth Smart technology.
The ability to control the device pairing experience directly from the smartphone application has ensured the device is incredibly simple to use from the very first time. A simple tap between the QardioArm and the phone and the user is ready to start using the product.
We wanted the device to be comfortable and the combination of the wireless technology with the compact design created a blood pressure device that is simple and convenient to have around at all times for daily measurements.
The low power consumption offered by CSR’s Bluetooth Smart technology means users don’t have to continually charge their device. And the small form factor of the chip has helped us deliver a compact design.
Users want to feel confident that data is accurate and safely stored. The encryption mechanism embedded in Bluetooth Smart technology has been crucial in helping us achieve that.
CSR: Why did you choose to work with CSR?
Qardio: We looked at different parameters like throughput, power consumption, module design and the completeness of the Bluetooth stack feature set. CSR performed better on every one of these points.
CSR: How do you think the personal medical market will evolve in the next five years?
Qardio: The market has seen an explosion of self-quantified applications in the last few years. Now with medical devices coming to the market with a consumer-focused design we will start collecting an unprecedented amount of clinical data that will help improve patient care. We will see companies creating predictive algorithms giving people the ability to truly achieve preventive care, lowering the unsustainable current trend of increasing healthcare costs.
The QardioArm records blood pressure readings and uploads them to the cloud, which can then be accessed via an iOS app
CSR1010 is part of the proven CSR µEnergy® line up of products – click here for more details.If you’re looking to develop a Bluetooth Smart device and have any questions please get in touch.
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