Continua's Choice - Low Power Technology Battle Won?

June 18, 2009 - PRLog -- ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announces the availability of a new report entitled "Wireless Opportunities In Remote Patient Monitoring Devices".

After a rigorous ten months, the decision regarding the chosen technologies for version 2 of Continua's design guidelines have finally been announced. Bluetooth Low Energy has been chosen to enable low powered portable medical devices in a PAN setting. This usage includes portable devices, such as activity monitors and heart rate sensors, which are used to monitor a users health and fitness levels.

The Zigbee's Health Care technology has also done well, being chosen as the technology of choice for low power sensors used in LAN devices, either at home or in a hospital environment.

Although these technologies will begin in personal consumer devices used by those ageing independently in the home, they will very soon become much more widespread in mobile devices, such as blood pressure monitors and pulse oximeters, providing the ideal eco-system for remote patient monitoring systems to become a success.

Continua's decision considered the choice of a number of low powered wireless technologies, each providing key beneficial features which would enable devices within the healthcare industry to work remotely. The decision to choose the most standardized technology out of the bunch, Bluetooth, was encouraged by the Bluetooth SIG's state of the art testing and qualification program and its presence in many supporting consumer electronics such as mobile phones and laptop PCs. The cost saving opportunities a wireless infrastructure can provide the healthcare industry is vast. The work that Continua are doing to create a standard for wireless technologies within such devices, is helping to drive the market and is encouraging more device manufacturers and key players within the healthcare market to invest in these initiatives.

Emma Naudo, author of the new market research report "Wireless Opportunities In Remote Patient Monitoring Devices" available at Electronics.ca Publications, states "this is also good news for more proprietary solutions, such as ANT and Sensium technologies, as whilst Bluetooth was the technology of choice for many devices, Zigbee has been confirmed as an alternate solution for specific use-cases proving that it really isn't a case of 'one size fits all' when it comes to technology choice for these devices".

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications' web site. View the report: http://www.electronics.ca/publications/products/Wireless-...

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