mHealth: 3 Business Examples of Proficient Hardware Integration

Mobile health products and services are very specific. Since they’re dealing with human health, they require a sky-high quality threshold for people to trust them. And this is especially true for hardware integration. 

In our previous article from the mHealth series, we’ve looked into 5 cutting-edge solutions that excelled at backing up their software with well-integrated hardware. In this entry, we’re going to present 3 more examples.   

But this time, all the solutions have been developed by PGS Software!  

EEG Headphones That Lull You to Sleep 

The National Institute of Health estimates that nearly 30% of the general population have some sort of sleep disruption, and roughly 10 percent suffer from associated symptoms of daytime functional impairment consistent with the diagnosis of insomnia.  

The founder of Kokoon also suffered from sleep issues. When he couldn’t find any product on the market that would help him with his condition, he decided to develop one himself.  

Kokoon headphones, created with scientists, help to relax and sleep using audio based on clinically proven techniques straight from the sleep clinic. The headphones possess special EEG sensors that enable to collect data for sleep analysis. By collecting data from thousands of customers all over the world, Kokoon created a special audio collection to make falling asleep easier. The company declares that thanks to its therapy, customers fall asleep 30% faster when compared to music or white noise. 

From the technological point of view, Kokoon headphones have been designed from scratch. One of the main design challenges was the communication layer. The app that manages the headphones should run for a long time without any issues. This can be problematic with every new operating system release. Finally, we were able to develop a stable and smoothly running application for both iOS and Android. 

Since this is a consumer-focused solution, pairing should be as simple as possible. As a result, connecting the headphones to a mobile device only requires regular Bluetooth. When an A2DP profile is connected for multimedia streaming, under the hood, the application additionally connects (BLE) with the sensors automatically – and that’s where all the dataflow takes place.      

Body Temperature Controlling

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a great need for body temperature controlling solutions. One of the main challenges at developing such systems is the possibility to install them easily at many different environments, like hotels, restaurants, airports, or events. HS Solutions came up with an idea to answer those needs.

To enable an accurate temperature read, a person’s face must be positioned precisely in front of the sensor. To help with that, we developed an application that detects faces and tracks a person’s position and distance to the sensor; the app also makes sure that the face remains in the right position throughout the entire process. Additionally, as a result of joint efforts with HS Solutions, we also developed a second application that enables to manage multiple controlling stations.

The systems come with a dedicated Wi-Fi router and a preconfigured, secured network, that only parts of the system have access to. The entire integration has HTTP as a communication layer; it’s also designed to automatically recover from any types of problems, like lost connection. The controlling module itself is secured in a housing that’s not easily accessible, which prevents any unwanted interactions with the hardware.

UV-C Decontamination 

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are a huge problem even in developed countries. Annually, they impact more than 1 million people and cost healthcare providers $30 billion in the U.S. alone. They also kill more people than Prostate and Breast Cancer combined.  

At hospitals, disinfection is an essential activity of everyday operations. To prevent the spread of dangerous microorganisms and create a safer environment, hospitals use stationary UV-equipped hardware. Yet, it’s expensive to fit multiple rooms with such a system.  

The solution to this problem is the perfect mix of technology and mobility. 

An American manufacturer of medical devices has developed an automated UV-C mobile disinfection tower, easily movable between rooms, that uses UV rays to destroy harmful organisms. The system’s flexibility significantly cuts equipment costs. The disinfection tower is effective against multi-drug resistant organisms including C.diff, MRSA, VRE, CRE, and Acinetobacter; its scientifically proven technology also rapidly decontaminates SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). 

A mobile device serves as a remote controller. It connects with the tower through Bluetooth with a Serial Port Profile. The controller enables to setup, run and monitor the disinfection processes, and also upgrade firmware. 

Good Hardware Means Further Advancement of Mobile Health 

With an increasing need for remote solutions, mHealth products and services are becoming more and more popular. One of the key enablers of this process is cutting-edge hardware and its proficient, reliable integration.  

Many mobile health–related fields can already be fully controlled with dedicated software and hardware. With such a rapid evolvement, the future looks bright for remote solutions that touch even the most complex issues, like a reliable, believable heart exam at home, which we mentioned in our previous blog entry.