Imagine a heart monitor that silently and consistently records each pulse for weeks without needing to be charged. Or a glucose sensor that provides precise readings in real time to physicians located miles away without ever interfering with a patient’s daily routine. Low-power healthcare wearable design has both potential and difficulty. Engineering decisions have a direct impact on lives in a field where patient safety, device dependability, and regulatory compliance all meet. More uptime, improved patient adherence, and reduced maintenance expenses may result from every milliwatt saved.
The healthcare industry, often hindered by fragmentation and complexity, has been slow to adopt new technologies. Yet, as our world becomes smarter and more connected, healthcare is poised for a transformation—ushering in truly connected care. By 2030, IoT-driven healthcare spending is projected to surge into the hundreds of billions, with some forecasts estimating up to $632 billion globally PharmiWeb.comGlobeNewswire. Connected health device markets are also expected to balloon—from around $93 billion in 2025 to over $134 billion by 2029 Financial Times.
This era promises 24/7 health monitoring, enhancing patient outcomes, convenience, and reducing costs. Thanks to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), insights are no longer intermittent—data flows continuously, enabling proactive care and streamlining health services. As smart devices proliferate across care settings, they will become central to improving diagnostics, care delivery, and overall health system efficiency.
Dealing with the competing demands of performance and power is the designer’s biggest obstacle. For medical wearable designs, low power solutions and optimized power management become essential factors. This article discusses common power-drawing methods for medical wearables, power-optimized design, and implementation strategies offered through our embedded hardware design services.
This Ways Medical Wearable Devices Draw Power
A collection of subsystems that include data collection, telemetry, analysis, and alerting is known as a medical wearable system. The following are some typical scenarios or methods by which medical wearable devices obtain power:
- Data from sensors must be continuously or frequently sampled in order to track the patient’s organs or activities.
- Data must be transmitted to a cloud or mobile application (usually once or twice a day in a normal health situation). greater power
- When there is an alert, sending data to the monitoring facility quickly and frequently uses too much power.
- When a Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth-enabled mobile device is unavailable, the healthcare wearable device enters search mode for the duration of the predetermined scan. The device uses more power during this time.
- It takes more power to analyze patient body sensor data using a complex algorithm, which typically takes longer to execute.
Set Functionality Priorities in the Event of Low Power
Continuous use of battery-operated medical equipment combined with delayed access to charging facilities can cause the battery’s capacity to drop below a certain point, forcing the device to run on low power. However, there are still some crucial core functions that must be completed promptly, such as monitoring a patient’s vital signs or alert situation. The power management strategy for wearables will enable the use of more power for these essential features. Here are a few instances of this:
- Even in low power mode, wearables that track a patient’s cough, breathing, and wheezing patterns must continuously record and analyze the audio in order to determine the severity of their asthma.
- Data must be promptly reported to a remote medical facility in the event of an abnormal situation or alert condition.
- A vibrator or display device will alert the user to the abnormal health condition.
- Data pertaining to abnormal health conditions must be stored in non-volatile memory before the battery runs out entirely in the event that connectivity with a monitoring device (cloud or mobile application) is lost. These details might be necessary for additional situational analysis.
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Design and Hardware Choice for a Medical Wearable with Power Optimization
Manufacturers are providing System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions that combine an application processor for complex data analysis and algorithms with a power-efficient microcontroller to assist designers in overcoming the engineering challenges related to medical wearables. Additionally, both of them can be chosen independently and interfaced via a communication bus (I2C, UART, SPI, etc.). The low power controller should be linked to peripherals needed for ongoing patient health monitoring (such as wearable health monitoring devices like fuel gauges for batteries) and sensors that are affixed to the patient’s body.
Power-optimized medical wearable product design also heavily relies on the choice of hardware platform and component. Here are some things to think about:
- Select SoC, RAM, EEPROM, and connectivity peripherals (such as Bluetooth, LTE, and Wi-Fi) that support low power requirements and operating modes. Before choosing, review the datasheet and their power requirements.
- If at all possible, measure actual power consumption using an off-the-shelf platform.
- Medical equipment that travels with a patient must be made with the possibility of being handled roughly and subjected to high or low temperatures and moisture in mind.
- Determine how much memory is needed to store patient health information. Select memory that requires little power.
Choosing the right SoC can make or break your power budget.
Design and Implementation Methods for Wearables with Power Optimization
- Unnecessary software services that are not required for device operation should be removed or disabled.
- Most of the time, keep the processor that uses the most advanced power in a low power state. Utilize an ultra-low power controller to continuously record data and activate the advanced processor when necessary.
- The majority of modern smartphones come pre-installed with Bluetooth Smart, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy, which is the industry standard for wearable wireless communication.
- Make two steps out of the complex analysis algorithm. The first step would be to analyze the possibility of an abnormal condition using a simple algorithm that runs on a low-power controller. To verify the anomalous situation, a sophisticated algorithm operating on a high-end processor would be the second step.
- In the event of a normal health condition, lower the frequency of data transmission to the remote monitoring facility.
- Don’t prolong the timeout period for network scans.
- Turn off non-essential features when the device is operating in low power mode. such as device self-testing, firmware upgrades, calibration, etc.
- Turn off any unnecessary SoC peripheral clocks.
- Establish an optimized data frame format to minimize the amount of data that is transmitted from the wearable device to the cloud server or mobile application.
- To keep the advanced processor in sleep mode for the majority of the device’s operation, various actuators (such as vibrators, LEDs, or displays) that are used to alert the patient to abnormal situations should, if at all possible, be connected to a continuous ON ultra-low power mode controller.
Conclusion
Every design decision in healthcare wearables involves a trade-off between “good enough” and “life-changing.” Improving patient outcomes, providing continuous care, and creating gadgets that people trust to be a part of their lives are all goals of the proper low-power approach. The teams that combine innovation with precise engineering will emerge victorious as the market accelerates and expectations rise. The choices you make now, whether you’re creating a prototype or developing a next-generation gadget, will impact not only how well your product functions but also its future role within the healthcare industry. Make your wearable idea a reality that can save lives. Partner with professionals who understand how to strike a balance between patient trust, performance, and low-power design to get your healthcare product ready for the market more quickly.
When designing medical devices, factors like reliability, accuracy, and safety remain critical. But in the wearable healthcare segment, battery life becomes equally essential. At Silicon Signals, we specialize in delivering best product engineering services, firmware development services, hardware design services, and PCB design solutions that ensure medical wearables are not only precise and safe but also power-optimized for long-term use. Our expertise enables healthcare innovators to bring next-generation connected devices to life—faster, smarter, and more efficiently.