New COVID-19 temperature-monitoring via a Bluetooth wearable

CWD Innovations has selected Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52832 Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the short-range wireless connectivity and core processing power for its “SmartTemp+” continuous body-temperature monitoring system. CWD is Nordic’s first official module partner in India.

According to the company, SmartTemp+ is a safe alternative to infrared, digital, and mercury-based thermometers for use in healthcare, government, and home environments. The platform is designed to support the frontline of the healthcare industry during the Covid-19 pandemic by enabling contactless measurement and continuous monitoring of patient temperature.

Fever is a symptom in around 88 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The SmartTemp+ also enables configurable alerts when the body temperature rises above or falls below a person’s appropriate threshold and GPS tagging and geofencing for patients under quarantine.

Once attaches to a person’s axial region (including the head, neck, and chest). The 3cm-diameter wearable device uses a built-in temperature sensor to reliably and accurately measure body temperature over a period of 15 days with no additional intervention.

The nRF52832 SoC’s powerful 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 processor is designed to support the Floating Point (FP) and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) computations typical of high-end wireless applications. The microprocessor, combined with the SoC’s generous memory allocation (512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM), provides ample processing resources to supervise the SmartTemp+’s advanced edge-computing algorithms.

Using the Nordic SoC-enabled Bluetooth LE connectivity, the temperature data is automatically transmitted every 60 seconds (or other configured advertising frequency) from the device to a Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone, from where the user can view the information and self-monitor through the iOS and Android ‘SmartTemp+’ companion app.

Alternatively, the data can be transmitted to a proprietary gateway within a hospital using Bluetooth LE, then relayed to a Cloud-based dashboard where the information can be monitored by healthcare professionals or health authorities. This enables early intervention in cases of Covid-19, as well as case mapping across the wider community.

Learn more here.