How to develop a wearable

27 March 2015 S3908-P-651 v1.0

Commercially Confidential

Does one size fit all?

…How to develop a wearable?

Ruth Thomson

Wearables London – 26th March 2015

As presented at the Wearables London

Meetup Group

http://www.meetup.com/Wearables-

London/events/219037701/

http://www.meetup.com/Wearables-London/events/219037701/




27 March 2015 S3908-P-651 v1.0 2 Commercially Confidential

Introduction

Technology options

Stakeholder requirements

Designing a successful solution

A sketchpad for engineers

How to develop a wearable?


Who we are

Over 450 engineers, designers, scientists, and consultants.

Delivering innovative product development for our clients across many market

sectors including medical, sports & fitness, enterprise, and personal care.

We work with our clients at all stages from concept generation, through prototyping

to transfer to manufacture & implementation of systems.

Further details at http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/


Sports performance and technique monitoring…

THEN… NOW…

Available technology components

Uptake of smart phones

Use of cloud storage

…


Technology availability

Components are now available at a cost, size and performance

that makes new products/systems possible…

…new options are emerging all the time.


Uptake of smartphones reduces the cost of entry for new products/systems…

The uptake of smartphones means that most

consumers already have part of the system

in their pocket

Wearable tech systems can effectively ‘piggy

back’ on this existing infrastructure

– Cost benefits

– Data capture is effectively omnipresent


Let’s consider the

technology building

blocks required to deliver

these systems


Technology – what are the options?

Wearable device(s)

Wearable

It’s important to remember that there is much more to this than just the wearable

device; you need to consider the whole system


Wearable device(s)

Wearable


sensors

UI

processing

comms

processing

processing

UI

service provisioning

service provisioning

sensors

UI

processing

comms


Wearable device(s)

Wearable


accelerometer

gyroscope

ECG

optical (PPG)

GPS

EEG

altimeter

pressure

GSR

lactate

camera

GPS

accelerometer

camera

algorithms

processor

power

security antenna

Bluetooth classic

BLE WiFi

GSM

NFC 4G

WiFi

algorithms

processor

power

security

LEDs

haptics display

auditory

display

haptics

auditory

magnetometer

…clearly there are lots of different options and many new ones emerging all the time…


…if you included all these technology components in a single solution you might end

up looking like this…


Does one size fit all?!

Clearly…NO!

…or worse…like this!…


Introduction

Technology options






Clearly one size doesn’t fit all,

and to develop a successful

solution it’s important to consider

the requirements of the

stakeholders who will use and

interact with your product/system


Angle of movement

What are the requirements? What is actually needed?

Technique

Heart rate

Waterproof

Weight

Think about the different requirements for different sports, and what

the athletes want to know…



Accuracy

Cost

Ease of use

Set up time

Data security

Think about the different requirements for athletes at different levels

in sport…from mass market consumers to elite athletes…



coach

sports

scientist media

fans

Think about the different requirements for the different stakeholders

involved in a single sport.…it’s not just all about the athlete, you

also need to consider…



coach

sports

scientist media

fans

…also think about the importance of the context of WHEN & HOW the information

will be consumed e.g. what the coach wants to know on the side of the pitch

during a game is different to the information he wants when reviewing the team

performance post-match, or when catching up 1:1 with a player to review

performance over an extended time


Introduction

Technology options






We’ve already talked about the

importance of understanding the

requirements of the stakeholders…

…when designing a successful

solution it is also important to

consider…


What’s your minimum viable product?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be ambitious, but you should think through what

would be the MVP that would be successful for you. This will allow you to

focus on delivering rather than being distracted by ‘nice to have’ features

which could increase the scope and delay your development.



….also, remember that this is a SYSTEM!

You need to consider the system

architecture right from the beginning…


Changes to one element of the system often affect others.

Understanding this and managing the system architecture are critical.

Designing a successful solution: it’s a system


Designing a successful solution: it’s a system

Demanding applications can result in conflicting design requirements.


Focus the development effort on the best commercial return

Differentiation

Development effort and risk

Good improvements

with increasing effort

Significant technical challenge


Introduction

Technology options






I’d like to introduce a toolkit that we have developed at CC that

enables us to explore and understand the options for a

connected device design.

In a day workshop with our clients we use the toolkit to very

quickly visualise the impact of decisions, and explore trade-offs

so that you can understand the realities of the design direction

before committing significant time & budget to development

It lets us explore possible size, cost, range, battery life…

It is a sketchpad for engineers!


I’m going to illustrate how you can use

the toolkit using a very simple

connected device concept…


I want a wearable connected product that…


If you go to an industrial designer

this is what you might get…


If you go to an industrial designer

this is what you might get…

If you spend some time with an industrial designer they will talk with you to understand

what it is you’re trying to create and pretty soon they’ll start drawing on a pad or the

whiteboard.

This is a really effective process – there’s communication in both directions. It’s easy to

see the sketches and understand what the product might look like.

The sketch provides a means of communicating that encourages exploration and

questioning. If there’s something you don’t like you can ask….what happens if I change

this….

So what happens when you need to design electronics, communications and advanced

maths…?


How do we make a better sketch pad for everything

else?


So whilst you were describing your concept,

and the industrial designer was sketching, the

engineer was thinking through the key

components for the design in their head.

That’s something that all engineers will do as

soon as you start describing a problem to

them, in fact it’s hard to get engineers not to

do that!

We can use the toolkit to bring this alive for

our clients…to make it visual…


First let’s consider….What do I need inside my connected product?

You’ll need…

A sensor to detect the activity

A radio to communicate with the rest of the world, and most radios these days

come with spare processing capability that can be used to give the device

some intelligence

As the user will probably want some simple feedback like whether it’s on or

whether the battery is low we’ll add in an LED

The radio is going to need an antenna to work well

The algorithm will be the bit that uses the processing capability to convert the

sensor data into activity information that the user can understand

And finally it will need to get power, so let’s add a battery


Choose parts

Copy reference designs

Test

How big will it be?

2 cm

Within seconds the toolkit

will create an image to

show the size of the PCB

You can see that the size

is dominated by the

ground plane of the

antenna.

This is the ‘keep out’ zone

that allows the antenna to

function as intended

antenna

antenna ground plane


How can I make it smaller?

Choose antenna

Reduce ground plane

Rapid prototype

PCB Test Iterate Finalise

2 cm

We can look at investing more effort in RF

engineering to create a more compact

antenna design. Before spending

development time & budget doing this, let’s

use the toolkit to visualise the impact this

could have…

…the toolkit includes a compact antenna

design, so, within seconds, we can see an

approximation of the impact and have an

informed decision about whether this is worth

the extra development cost or not.


We can do the same for

power…


So how long will it last?

LED

Processing of

sensor data:

The algorithm


That’s not great – how can

we improve the battery

life?

Add a button

Assume more software effort so

the algorithm requires less

processing resource


How much will it cost?

Conceptual BoM DetailedBoM

Sensor

Radio

LED

Antenna

Algorithm

Battery

The toolkit links to

on-line 3rd party

catalogues for low

volume

components

allowing us to

quickly see the

approx cost.

And after the

workshop we can

talk to

manufacturing

partners to

understand

potential costs in

high volume.


Use the sketchpad for engineers to explore and

understand the trade offs in the design

Pick your direction

GO! GO! GO!


This is our ‘sketchpad’ for engineers!

Similar to an industrial designers sketchpad it isn’t

intended to be highly accurate, but rather to enable

informed decisions and the evolution of the concept that

will come from being able to visualise the trade offs and

design options.

We use the toolkit in a workshop style project with our

clients to enable the right decisions to be made before

starting work on the development.


If you’d like to learn more then we’ve written a report

on the top 10 tips to creating a successful connected

device. You can download this here…

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/media/press-

releases/demystifying-connected-world

Do get in-touch if you have a project where you’d like

to use the toolkit or if you’re looking for development

support for your innovative wearable product!

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/media/press-releases/demystifying-connected-world








Introduction

Technology options




Thank you! Any questions?



More about the presenter…

Ruth Thomson leads the Consumer business at Cambridge

Consultants. She has more than 12 years’ experience of

working with consumer brands, using technology to deliver

innovative consumer experiences across a range of

products and services. In the wearables space she is

working across sports and fitness technology, wellness and

personal care applications bringing Cambridge Consultants'

significant skills and experience in the development of novel

connected systems to these opportunities for innovation.

More info at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

Contact Ruth at [email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

mailto:[email protected]

27 March 2015 S3908-P-651 v1.0

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