Wearables are expanding beyond the common activity tracking and fitness use cases that already claim almost 1-billion connected devices today. The evolution of wearable technology can be attributed to improving processor performance, sensors, wireless connectivity and tracking capabilities, contactless payment/access, extended battery life, and the demand for richer user experiences. All of this creates the ideal foundation for new health and wellbeing use cases.
NXP’s broad portfolio of MCUs, applications processors, WiFi/BLE/NFC/UWB-enabled devices, as well as power management ICs is driving new wearable applications within the IoT, including SOS emergency calling, safe zone alerts, contact tracing/social distancing, and vitals reporting (HR, SPO2, Body Temp, Sleep Patterns, etc.) for elderly, cognitively impaired and high-risk patients.