Oslo, Norway, 7 December, 2012 – Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, announces a partnership with Lamprey Networks Inc. (LNI) to provide energy friendly, secure and certified remote monitoring medical electronic systems. Using a standard EFM32 starter-kit and HealthLink PC tools, the design includes a USB driver and communications protocol stack certified by Continua Health Alliance. Continua is the international industry organization dedicated to advancing personal connected health by promoting end-to-end, plug-and-play connectivity of personal health devices and establishing industry standards for interoperability. The demo platform is based on the USB versions of Energy Micro’s EFM32 Leopard and Giant Gecko ranges of Cortex-M3 based, energy-friendly microcontrollers. It will also be applicable to the forthcoming Cortex-M4 floating-point Wonder Gecko. The energy efficient 32-bit design facilitates fast, reliable development of patient monitoring systems, including blood glucose monitors and a fast-growing number of mobile healthcare devices, many of which require high performance processing matched to the lowest possible energy consumption in order to maximize battery life.
“The Energy Micro USB certified driver and LNI’s Continua-Certified protocol stacks enable rapid, seamless transfer of accurate data between devices and
cloud host systems. Implementation will reduce the time required to bring new electronic healthcare products to market. Energy Micro sees the medical electronics sector as an important and exciting growth market to which our products are ideally suited,” said Øyvind Grotmol, Energy Micro’s VP of Simplicity.
Mike Mazzola, CEO of LNI added, “Minimizing energy consumption is critical to the success of mobile healthcare devices because it frees users from the worry of frequent battery changes or re-charging. We expect products based on the EFM32 and Continua-Certified protocol stack to be amongst the most energy- efficient available.”
In addition to USB stacks, LNI provides implementations of their HealthLink interface and protocols that operate on common platforms such as Android, Windows, Linux and iOS. This enables users to transfer health and fitness data via multiple transports such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE and Zigbee directly to Continua receivers. Individuals and healthcare professionals can then store and maintain this information on the Microsoft HealthVault internet platform. Devices can also be configured to communicate over a cloud network using LNI’s HealthLink Cloud, a software development kit for back end servers that sends and receives WAN measurement data and enables this to be shared across the health ecosystem.
“Continua Design Guidelines and Certification enables manufacturers and integrators to create devices and platforms that make the collection and sharing of personal health data convenient and secure for consumers and health care providers, while saving valuable development time and money,” added Chuck
Parker, Executive Director, Continua Health Alliance. “Continua is pleased to support Energy Micro and LNI in their development of more energy-friendly, secure remote monitoring devices. More efficient, user-friendly connectivity and convenient remote monitoring devices will further encourage the adoption of personal connected health solutions by both consumers and healthcare providers.”
The 32-bit CortexTM-M3 ARM® processor was developed for power sensitive applications. Energy Micro’s EFM32 uses the Cortex-M3’s low power and high performance, in combination with unique low power autonomous peripherals, to create the world’s lowest power embedded systems platform so that designers can achieve the lowest total energy consumption for their products. Typical applications experience four times longer operation for a given battery capacity when using an EFM32 Gecko microcontroller.
The Energy Micro/LNI demonstration is available free for EFM32 Giant Gecko STK users. A software example is freely available in Simplicity Studio suite from Energy Micro, and the “HealthLink” PC software from Lamprey can be found at http://www.lnihealth.com.
For further information and reader enquiries:
Øyvind Borgan, Energy Micro AS, PO Box 4633, Nydalen, N-405 Oslo, Norway
Tel: +47 23 00 98 00 [email protected] Fax: +47 23 00 98 01 www.energymicro.com
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Bob Jones, Publitek Limited, 18 Brock Street, Bath, BA1 2LW, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1225 470 000 [email protected]
Fax: +44 (0)1225 470 047 www.publitek.com
About Energy Micro
Energy Micro is a global provider of energy friendly microcontrollers and RF transceivers based on the ARM® CortexTM processor core. Consuming a quarter of the energy of competing products, the company’s ultra low power EFM32 Gecko MCUs and EFR4 Draco radios target energy sensitive applications, including smart metering, building automation, security systems portable health and fitness equipment and smart accessories. The products are supported by Energy Micro’s Simplicity Studio, the easy-to-use software console that helps to reduce embedded system development times by a half. Further information is available at www.energymicro.com
About LNI
LNI is a leading provider of standards based, consumer and patient centric, end-to-end connectivity and interoperability software solutions from personal sensors into the cloud and through to care providers. LNI licenses commercial grade implementations of industry standard heath related protocols including ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 managers and clients, as well as core IHE transactions. Additionally LNI provides software SDKs that incorporate these protocols for use within Android, iOS, Linux, and Windows. LNI is also a key technology provider to the Continua Health Alliance for core Continua Enabling Software Library (CESL) protocols and advanced solutions. LNI is located in Durham, NH. For more information visit: www.lampreynetworks.com
About Continua
Continua Health Alliance (Continua) is an international not-for-profit industry organization enabling end-to-end, plug-and-play connectivity of personal health devices and services. These services will empower information-driven health self-management and facilitate the incorporation of health and wellness into the day-to-day lives of consumers. Continua is a pioneer in establishing standards-based guidelines and security for connected health technologies such as smartphones, gateways and remote monitoring devices through its Guideline releases. The Alliance’s activities include a certification and brand support program, events and collaborations to support technology and clinical innovation, and outreach to employers, payers, governments and care providers. With nearly 220 member companies reaching across the globe, Continua is comprised of technology, medical device and healthcare industry leaders and service providers dedicated to making personal connected health a reality. For more information visit: www.continuaalliance.org.
