B-Secur today announced it has launched an electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) solution based on the Texas Instruments (TI) AFE4950 analog front end (AFE) for photoplethysmography (PPG) and ECG/EKG sensing that will accelerate the design of next-generation consumer wearables.
The integration provides high-performing sensing capabilities for wearable devices like premium smartwatches and Wi-Fi-connected optical heart-rate monitors, and enables advanced features for identification, wellness and health monitoring in Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
It is the industry’s first solution with a fully integrated ECG/EKG and PPG signal chain that allows for synchronous sampling of cardiac activity with dry electrodes used in battery-operated products.
It follows an announcement from B-Secur that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its innovative HeartKey® ECG/EKG software.
The combination of HeartKey® and TI’s AFE4950 enables device manufacturers and partners around the world to eliminate months of R&D with a fully integrated sensor, electrical and signal processing solution. It is a key development enabling heart-health features to become widely available in the fast-paced and rapidly evolving consumer wearables sector.
The collaboration is part of B-Secur’s drive to speed up the development and adoption of high-performance biosensing solutions by device manufacturers worldwide.
Ben Carter, Chief Commercial Officer, B-Secur commented: “It is a key strategic development for B-Secur to announce this integration with Texas Instruments and our FDA-cleared HeartKey® software today. As more and more wearable and IoT devices adopt ECG/EKG technology, supplying a fully integrated, high-performance solution with Texas Instruments means our customers around the world can bring their own consumer wearable products to market quicker and with greater confidence.”
Karthik Soundarapandian, product line manager for medical imaging at TI, said: “The trend in consumer electronics is to add more health monitoring into smartwatches and other wearables. This, in combination with a patient’s medical history, can help health professionals with early detection and prevention of disease. The precision signal quality from the AFE4950-based hardware, combined with B-Secur’s algorithms, will help wearables manufacturers design solutions that make clinical-quality monitoring more accessible to a wider population.”
B-Secur’s HeartKey® consists of a suite of powerful ECG/EKG algorithms that uniquely combine user identification, health, and wellness to generate accurate data encrypted through the user’s unique heartbeat.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of death globally with an estimated 17.9 million people dying from the disease each year representing 31% of all global deaths.