Overcoming the Size and Power Trade off in Wearable Designs

There is a real buzz around wearable technology with headline-grabbing news announcing the exciting devices that are coming to market. The term ‘wearables’ describes all aspects of technology that can be worn on the body from wristbands, watches, glasses, clothing, footwear, jewelery and beyond. The bounds of wearables are limitless and are expected to be the next big growth area in smart portable devices.The device itself is only half the story. The real power is in connecting the device to the cloud, and in turn, to apps and services that travel with us. Early examples of wearable devices fall broadly into three categories: fitness activity trackers, watches (smartphone second screen) and glasses All of these devices have the ability to gather data via sensors to make sense of your daily activity and connect to the cloud so analytics can be performed on the data. Behavioral and health analytics is the key to changing or improving lifestyles and increasing the “stickiness” of the wearable device. In other words, making the wearable device an automatic companion. Many of today’s fitness trackers are worn for a few months and then forgotten and left in a drawer. The challenge and goal of wearable device manufacturers is to create something that becomes an automatic companion for the long haul.

This white paper outlines how ARM and Freescale are working together to deliver market-leading semiconductor solutions for wearable devices. Paramount to this is the ability to deliver ultra-power and space-efficient solutions that translate into small form factor devices that last longer on a single charge.This white paper will also provide a detailed overview of how the wearables market is evolving, examine some examples in the market today and discuss the technologies necessary to deliver low power and special requirements. Finally, we’ll look at the role of the innovator and the tools and platforms to help fuel innovation in the wearable technology space.