Joint Chinese is launching its latest turnkey smart ring design based on Nordic’s nRF52840 SoC. The Bluetooth LE SoC provides connectivity and supervises the health and wellness sensor algorithms. The out-of-the-box solution comes with a breadth of monitoring options, including V02 max, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), blood glucose estimation, temperature, heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV), as well as sleep and activity data.

“The J-Style JCRing is the future of personal health measurement and has been developed for users who need to continuously monitor their body data, as well as people concerned about their personal health and fitness,” said Yan Hongwu, the general manager at Joint Chinese Limited. “We have worked with Nordic for many years now because the company has a long-standing reputation in health applications and its ultra low power wireless SoCs are ideally suited to resource constrained applications such as smart rings.”

Advanced operation and data security

The J-Style JCRing comes in a miniaturised 8 mm wide and 2.9 mm thick form factor, in a range of U.S. standard ring sizes. Despite its small size, the device offers advanced operation and superior data security, thanks to the Nordic SoC’s rich set of features. The nRF52840 SoC is available in a wafer level chip scale package (WLCSP) to support both cost- and space-constrained wireless designs, while its 64 MHz, Arm Cortex M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) provides ample computational overhead to supervise the sensors and run the sensor algorithms. The Arm CryptoCell-310 cryptographic accelerator ensures personal data remains secure on the device and during transmission, essential in sensitive health applications.

In typical operation, the J-Style JCRing’s 14.5-21.5 mAh Li-Po battery achieves a life of up to 10 days between recharge, or up to 30 days in standby mode, depending on which features have been activated and the frequency of ring use. This extended battery life is in part thanks to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52840 has been engineered to minimise power consumption with features such as the 2.4 GHz radio’s 5.5-mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully automatic power management system that significantly reduces power consumption.

Thanks to the performance of JCRing, J-Style now is one of the leaders in Smart Ring and also aiming to get the smart ring Medical certificate in Q1 2025

Robust and stable wireless connectivity

The nRF52840 SoC’s robust and stable Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity enables the user to view and analyse their health data via the ‘JCRing’ app on their smartphone. The iOS and Android app also enables users to set personalised goals and receive health advice, while female users can manage and track their menstrual cycle.

The endurance of the battery and Bluetooth range is better than similar products on the market because of Nordic’s leadership in ultra low power wireless connectivity. The nRF52840 SoC’s powerful processor and large memory capacity together ensure the complex sensor algorithms can be carried out rapidly and accurately, while the high radio sensitivity guarantees a stable Bluetooth connection.

“Thanks to the great performance of JCRing, J-Style now is one of the top leaders in Smart Ring and also aiming to get the smart ring Medical certificate in Q1 2025.” said Yan Hongwu.

“By providing comprehensive technical information and reference designs, Nordic also simplifies the development process. An excellent team of application engineers provides quick response and professional support.”

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Swedish company Innoware Development has launched a vehicle smart lighting system, designed to enable the simple installation of aftermarket auxiliary lights. Consisting of an ‘XBB Dongle’ and ‘XBB PowerUnit’, the solution can be fitted without any modifications to the vehicle’s original electrical setup by using Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52832 SoC.

Once the user has installed aftermarket lights to their vehicle, they are connected to the XBB PowerUnit which is in turn connected to the car’s battery. Meanwhile, the XBB Dongle is plugged into the vehicle’s OBD2 port. Both devices integrate the ISP1507-AX module from Insight SiP, which is based on Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC. The module provides Bluetooth LE connectivity between the XBB PowerUnit and the XBB Dongle, as well as between the dongle and the ‘XBB Configurator’ app on the user’s smartphone.

Personalised configuration

From the app the user can download vehicle specific settings or ‘recipes’ and configure preferred signals for controlling the lights through the vehicle’s existing controls. The app includes a dashboard to toggle the lights on and off, and provides statistics such as restarts and ignition time. Users can also update the system firmware via the app.