Maxim's ultra-small hSensor platform supports fast, easy wearable product design

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Maxim's ultra-small hSensor platform is a powerful tool designed to help engineers quickly and efficiently validate next-generation solutions in the fields of health, wellness, and high-end fitness wearables.

Creating a custom board with sensors can be a complex and time-consuming process. Engineers often need to build custom hardware and firmware just to test design principles and create prototypes before field trials. This means they spend a significant amount of time evaluating different sensors and existing solutions. The hSensor platform from Maxim simplifies this by integrating all necessary hardware modules onto a single PCB and using the ARM mbed Hardware Development Kit (HDK), which reduces prototyping time by three to six months.

The hSensor platform, also known as the MAXREFDES100# reference design, includes the hSensor board, complete driver firmware, debug board, and a graphical user interface (GUI). With the firmware source code available on the Maxim website, designers can easily load algorithms from various use cases, making it adaptable to their specific application needs. Customers can download optimized firmware designs, speed up evaluations, and significantly reduce time-to-market. This platform stands out as the most comprehensive and ideal development solution for health, healthcare, and high-end fitness wearable applications, such as chest straps, ECG devices, wristbands, thermometers, disposable temperature patches, oximeters, smart scales, biometric sensors, and more.

For example, engineers can develop a wearable patch powered by a single CR2032 battery that continuously records ECG data, offering twice the battery life of current solutions—cutting power consumption by over 50%.

The hSensor platform integrates the following key components:

• MAX30003: Ultra-low-power, single-channel integrated bioelectromotive analog front end
• MAX30101: High-sensitivity pulse oximeter and heart rate sensor
• MAX30205: Industry’s only clinical temperature sensor
• MAX32620: Ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M4F microcontroller for wearable optimization
• MAX14720: Industry’s lowest quiescent current management IC (PMIC)
• Additional products: Inertial sensors (3-axis accelerometer, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope), atmospheric pressure sensor, flash memory, and low-power Bluetooth wireless communication

Main Advantages

• Quick Design Validation: Full-featured hardware and firmware that can save up to 6 months of design time.
• Faster Time to Market: Built on existing hardware and firmware, allowing rapid completion of hardware design.
• ARM mbed Support: Efficient evaluation, fast prototyping, and a highly integrated mbed environment with no need to maintain software tools or worry about limited libraries.
• Complete Solution: A compact, ultra-small (25.4mm x 30.5mm) one-stop solution that includes everything users need. No need to access multiple resources, and it runs on a single button battery, supporting Bluetooth Low Energy, flash memory storage, and USB connectivity.

Customer Feedback

"With the introduction of the Maxim hSensor platform, we can simplify what was once a very complex measurement process," said Matt Banet, Chief Scientific Officer at ToBa. "It provides an easy-to-use development kit that can be successfully applied in our own hardware platform."

"Maxim is deeply committed to the wearables market, and the hSensor platform is a strong testament to that commitment," said Andrew Baker, Executive Director of Industrial and Healthcare Products at Maxim Integrated. "As new applications continue to emerge, we will expand the platform further to support specific application scenarios."

"The process of designing custom boards from scratch is very cumbersome, and Maxim's new platform helps free engineers from that burden," said Susie Inouye, Director of R&D at Databeans. "This kind of technology is key to driving cost reductions and will attract more consumers, especially in the fitness app market where price sensitivity remains high."

MAXREFDES100# Supply and Pricing

The MAXREFDES100# reference design is priced at $150 and is available for purchase through Maxim’s official website and authorized distributors. It also includes free online access to hardware and firmware design files.

For more information on other reference designs, visit: https://www.maximintegrated.com

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