Bluetooth and LTE will provide connectivity for IoT wearable
Altair Semiconductor, a provider of LTE chipsets, has partnered with Ericsson and Sony Mobile to demonstrate a new concept for an LTE-M/Cat-M1-powered diabetes monitoring in an IoT wearable form factor that will be showcased during the 2018 MWC in Barcelona, Spain.
The wristband prototype connects via Bluetooth to a smart transmitter for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) provided by Senseonics. The wearable wristband monitors and displays blood sugar levels, activity, sleep and heart rate, alerting the user when glucose levels drop, and is used in conjunction with the Sony cloud solution and Xperia smartphone application. Altair’s ALT1210 chipset provides the wearable device with LTE-M/Cat-M1 connectivity to the cloud, without dependence on a smartphone for cellular coverage.
Altair said that its ALT1210 chipset is ideal for a variety of internet of things applications such as trackers, wearable devices, sensors and numerous other consumer and industrial IoT devices.
“We are committed to developing robust, global massive IoT solutions that may be deployed on existing LTE networks enabling new capabilities and facilitating the support of new IoT use cases and applications,” said Marie Hogan, head of broadband and IoT RAN, at Ericsson.
“This concept demo using Sony Mobile’s healthcare vision, the capabilities of Altair’s LTE-M/Cat-M1 chipset and Ericsson’s IoT solution, is a great example of how low-cost and power-efficient connectivity can pave the way for a range of industrial and consumer IoT applications.”
Health care is an attractive vertical for the telecom ecosystem, but it’s a difficult space to address. Take a look at what’s happening with Ericsson’s chief rival Nokia. Less than two years after putting the pieces together for a business unit to serve the digital health space, Nokia is re-evaluating the status of that business.
In a brief statement earlier this month, Nokia said it has initiated a strategic review of its Digital Health business, which is part of Nokia Technologies and that the review “may or may not result in any transaction or other changes.” The company added that the patent business, brand partnerships and technology licensing operations that also fall under Nokia Technologies are not part of the review.
