1:1 interview with Jean Anne Booth of UnaliWear

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“What really makes the Kanega Watch different is that it goes where you go, both inside your home and away. It is discreetly styled, so there’s no stigma from wearing an assistive device, and it speaks to you in words.” 

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In this interview, we feature Jean Anne Booth, a serial entrepreneur with a successful track record in hardware innovation, having previously launched and sold two large and notable companies. Her current project is UnaliWear, a wearable health technology startup that has recently made its Kickstarter debut. She comes with a wealth of experience, and her timing could’t be better as the wearable digital health market continues to unfold. What’s more, Kanega Watch — which we recently featured on Bits & Pieces — is looking to bring a much-needed vision for practical usage to that space.

Tom Vu: What’s the main driver to going about this once again? Well, considering you did this before as the first person to launch the ARM Cortex-M3 at Luminary Micro?

Jean Anne Booth: Great question! I actually retired for a couple of years after I sold my last company to Texas Instruments. During this period, my mom turned 80, and she had a couple of incidents that made me start looking for a personal emergency response system for her. Many of the assistive devices available are flawed in one aspect of another. Most importantly, there are three reasons, which make them quite hard for seniors to desire to integrate into their lives. First, they are ugly. Secondly, if they have connectivity, the devices usually require some complicated installation of a tethered smart phone or access point. And one of the most overlooked objections, there is a big “HELP” button. This big button is quite visually disturbing. When you see the big “HELP” button made large for usability and functionality, it is so socially stigmatizing. I wanted my mom to live safely while being independent and not being socially stigmatized.

TV: How is the UnaliWear Kanega Watch different from other wearable tech?

JAB: Focus groups have called Kanega Watch a ‘wearable OnStar for seniors’ because we provide discreet support for falls, medication reminders, and a guard against wandering in a classically styled watch that uses an easy speech interface rather than buttons. What really makes the Kanega Watch different is that it goes where you go, both inside your home and away. It is discreetly styled, so there is no stigma from wearing an assistive device, and it speaks to you in words. The watch brand name “Kanega” is from Cherokee for “speak”.

TV: Is what you’re creating really going to make our lives better?

JAB: Yes, it’s about being there when it counts. You can wear Kanega Watch on 24×7 basis, so you don’t forget to put it back on, and therefore you’re wearing when you need it. There is a very long battery life, unlike an Apple Watch, Android, or Samsung smartwatch. There is no need for an additional device, either an access point or a smartphone. For seniors, or those who are independent but vulnerable, it can help with issues at night like trips to the bathroom. It’s waterproof, not just water resistant, so you can wear it in the shower/bath (this is where a majority of falls happen), and also in your pool exercises. It works anywhere you go, and those who are vulnerable are not trapped at home. Importantly, there is a convenience to this as you’re wearing everything you need to stay safe.

For instance, here is one of the fundamental characteristics of how the watch works, and why our tagline is “Extending Independence with Dignity.” If the Kanega Watch wants to speak, it will ask permission first. It requests permission to speak by buzzing on the wearer’s wrist like a cellphone on silent, so there’s no visual or audible stigma of wearing an assistive device when socially inappropriate — like at church.

If it detects a potential fall, it will ask if you will need help, because two out of three falls do not require help. In fact, Kanega Watch will continuously monitor you – a kind of continuous welfare check. In a suspected fall, if you don’t respond to the request for permission to speak (for example, if you’re unconscious, unable to move, or unable to speak), then it will begin to escalate and then notify emergency and your contacts for help. There’s practical and smart logic built into the wearable.

TV: How has your experience in this industry going to help in fulfilling the practical/adoptable use of moving wearable tech toward broader acceptance/use?

JAB: To me, it’s not about advancing a category of technology. It’s about harnessing technology to solve real problems, and in this case, about allowing people to live independently, safely, for as long as possible. It’s been an interesting experience transitioning from semiconductors to healthcare, and has proven to be very rewarding building products that directly make people’s lives better. It’s a fantastic feeling!

TV: What hardware startups do you think are actually doing some really interesting things right now?

JAB: That’s a hard question for me because I’m biased toward products that make a difference and are directly useful. Often what is the most cool and interesting is not at all useful! One thing that our Kickstarter campaign has taught us is that the average person buying things that are cool is not quite in the same category as the people who would buy our wearable for seniors.

TV: How would you describe your team?

JAB: Today, our team consists of a cadre of three founders. Our CTO Marc DeVinney does all the hardware. Brian Kircher, who I’ve worked with for 14 years, does all the software for the Kanega Watch. I do everything else.

TV: Who do you look up to as a mentor now?

JAB: Jimmy Treybig, founder of Tandem Computers, has been a close friend for years and has always been helpful. Jimmy has been a source of a lot of wisdom. For this particular company, another extremely important mentor is my mother, Joan, who is also our Senior User Experience Advisor. She’s put together a number of focus groups, and has also been a lot of help in detailing the use cases.

TV: What improvements will your product provide society? Perhaps even help the movement of IoT, connected things and wearables?

JAB: The Internet of Things promises to transform daily life, making it easier to work, shop, merchandise, exercise, travel and stay healthy. Really, thanks to billions of connected devices — from smart toothbrushes and thermostats to commercial drones and robotic companions for the elderly. It also will end up gathering vast amounts of data that could provide insights about our habits, religious beliefs, political leanings, sentiments, consumer interest, sports, and even as far as go to other highly personal aspects of our lives. I think the maturation of IoT and wearables is intertwined together. In some respects, what we are building at UnaliWear is also helping cement together the more meaningful adoption of wearables. In our particular case with the Kanega Watch, we couldn’t solve our user problem unless we could provide a better wearable device that is constantly connected all the time. Ultra-low power is very challenging fundamental backstop for every wearable device, and for most IoT devices as well. Our wearable includes cellular, GPS, and Wi-Fi built into one seamlessly integrated non-obtrusive wearable.

Our design goal for the Kanega Watch is that it must be wearable 24×7. It cannot be in a pocket or have requirements of being tucked into a purse. It also must have enough communications capability so that a senior is not stuck in their home all the time. To meet this goal, we have a unique patent-pending quick swap battery system enabling a user to not have to take the watch off to charge. The wearable can last 2 days for most users, and it comes with four batteries. It’s designed to have two batteries available on the charger and two batteries on the watch at all times. The device eliminates the need to be near a base station or smartphone.

Today, simply using built-in smartphone or app presents a couple of problems. Most seniors today don’t have nor operate a smart phone. Less than 5% of seniors over 80 years in age have a smart phone today. For the few seniors who do have smart phones, there are still problems using a smart phone for falls and reminders, because today’s smart phones still have only about 10 hours of real usage time per day.

TV: By 2050, what are some of your predictions for consumers or users interacting with technology on a day-to-day basis?

JAB: I do think that speech will definitely play a larger part in our interaction paradigm. Remember that popular Star Trek movie scene where they come back in time to save the whales and Scotty goes with Checkov to analyze the strength of the materials being used to make a housing for the whales, and the computer he is given is the original Macintosh. Scotty speaks to the Mac, Checkov reminds him that’s not the interface, and then Scotty picks up the mouse and speaks to the mouse. This seems to show a natural interface into the future as Scotty mistakes the old computer for one he can easily and naturally talk to. Now looking at where we are today – the senior population is the fastest growing population segment in the US, and by 2030 will be 20% of our total population. Today, there are 17 million seniors above the age of 75 who are living independently, yet only 2.2 million of those independent seniors have any kind of monitoring system to get help. Today’s 17 million seniors will burgeon to 27 million seniors by 2030. Natural speech interfaces and connectivity will be control what we’re able to build in the future.

TV: What question might you pose to someone in the middle of making a choice to purchase or carry something that is connected and electronically enabling for a senior in their lives?

JAB: I think the message is simple. We show over and over again that if you want to extend the time and quality of someone’s life, then extend their independence. That means you need products that a senior is willing to wear, and that fits into their active lifestyle. At its core, the wearable is based on an Atmel | SMART SAM4L Cortex-M4 MCU running FreeRTOS as the real time operating system and also includes the ATWINC1500 SmartConnect device for Wi-Fi. The Kanega Watch includes both Wi-Fi and cellular communications; when you’re at home, it uses your Wi-Fi. When you’re away, it transitions seamlessly to cellular.

TV: Does the Kanega Watch have initial roots from the Maker Movement?

JAB: Yes, the roots are definitely Maker Movement – and also a lot of rapid prototyping (hardware’s version of the Lean Startup). We built our first industrial design prototypes at the TechShop in Austin, and our very first alpha design used a 3D-printed “box” as the “watch”. We make a lot of prototypes with rapid turn 3D-printing and CNC-machined aluminum. Before we built our own first prototypes, we created a software prototype on the Omate TrueSmart smart watch, which has dual 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex-A8’s running Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.” Our only challenge with this prototype is that the battery life was an unsatisfying 5 hours – which meant that I had a battery pocket in my pocket and kept the watch plugged in with a cord hidden under my shirt when I needed to demonstrate over a long period, such as at a conference like SxSW. I like our current prototypes better!

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Interested in learning more or have an elderly family member who could benefit from the Kanega Watch? Head over to UnaliWear’s current Kickstarter campaign here.

Simply the highest performing Cortex-M MCU

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Why develop a new MCU instead of using a high-performance MPU? Eric Esteve says “simplicity.”

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By Eric Esteve

If you target high growth markets like wearable (sport watches, fitness bands, medical), industrial (mPOS, telematics, etc.) or smart appliances, you expect using a power efficient MCU delivering high DMIPs count. We are talking about systems requiring a low bill of material (BoM) both in terms of cost and devices count. Using a MCU (microController) and not a MPU (microProcessor) allows for the minimizing of power consumption as such device like the SAM S70 runs at the 300 MHz range, not the GigaHertz, while delivering 1500 CoreMark. In fact, it’s the industry’s highest performing Cortex-M MCUs, but the device is still a microcontroller, offering multiple interface peripherals and the related control capabilities, like 10/100 Ethernet MAC, HS USB port (including PHY), up to 8 UARTs, two SPI, three I2C, SDIOs and even interfaces with Atmel Wi-Fi and ZigBee companion IC.

The Cortex-M7 family fits within the SAM4 Cortex-M4 and the SAM9 ARM9 products.
The Cortex-M7 family offers high performance up to 645 Dhrystone MIPS but as there is no Memory Management Unit, we can not run Operating System such as Linux. This family targets applications with high performance requirements and running RTOS or bare metal solution.

This brand new SAM S/E/V 70 32-bit MCU is just filling the gap between the 32-bit MPU families based on Cortex-A5 ARM processor core delivering up to 850 DMIPS and the other 32-bit MCU based on ARM Cortex-M. Why develop a new MCU instead of using one of this high performance MPU? Simplicity is the first reason, as the MCU does not require using an operating system (OS) like Linux or else. Using a simple RTOS or even a scheduler will be enough. A powerful MCU will help to match increasing application requirements, like:

• Network Layers processing (gateway IoT)
• Higher Data Transfer Rates
• Better Audio and Image Processing to support standard evolution
• Graphical User Interface
• Last but not least: Security with AES-256, Integrity Check Monitor (SHA), TRNG and Memory Scrambling

Building MCU architecture probably requires more human intelligence to fulfill all these needs in a smaller and cheaper piece of silicon than for a MPU! Just look at the SAM S70 block diagram below, for instance.

SAM S70 Block diagram

The memory configuration is a good example. Close to the CPU, implementing 16k Bytes Instruction and 16k Bytes Data caches is a well-known practice. On top of the cache, the MCU can access Tightly Coupled Memories (TCM) through a controller running at MPU speed, or 300 MHz. These TCM are part of (up to) 384 Kbytes of SRAM, implemented by 16 Kbytes blocks and this SRAM can also be accessed through a 150 MHz bus matrix by most of the peripheral functions, either directly through a DMA (HS USB or Camera interface), either through a peripheral bridge. The best MCU architecture should provide the maximum flexibility: a MCU is not an ASSP but a general purpose device, targeting a wide range of applications. The customer benefits from flexibility when partitioning the SRAM into System RAM, Instruction TCM and Data TCM.

As you can see, the raw CPU performance efficiency can be increased by smart memory architecture. However, in terms of embedded Flash memory, we come back to a basic rule: the most eFlash is available on-chip, the easier and the safer will be the programming. The SAM S70 (or E70) family offers 512 Kbytes, 1 MB or 2 MB of eFlash… and this is a strong differentiator with the direct competitor offering only up to 1 MB of eFlash. Nothing magical here as the SAM S70 is processed on 65nm when the competition is lagging on 90nm. Targeting a most advanced node is not only good for embedding more Flash, it’s also good for CPU performance (300 MHz delivering 1500 DMIPS, obviously better than 200 MHz) — and it’s finally very positive in power consumption.

Indeed, Atmel has built a four mode strategy to minimize overall power consumption:

• Backup mode (VDDIO only) with low power regulators for SRAM retention
• Wait mode: all clocks and functions are stopped except some peripherals can be configured to wake up the system and Flash can be put in deep power down mode
• Sleep mode: the processor is stopped while all other functions can be kept running
• Active mode

Target Applications depicted above for Atmel’s SMART | ARM based Cortex M7 SAM S Series. The SAM S series are general-purpose Flash MCUs based on the high-performance 32-bit ARM based Cortex-M7 RISC processors with floating point unit (FPU).

If you think about IoT, the SAM S70 is suited to support gateway applications, among many other potential uses, ranging from wearable (medical or sport), industrial or automotive (in this case it will be the SAM V70 MCU, offering EMAC and dual CAN capability on top of S70).

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This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Eric Esteve is a principle blogger as well as one of the four founding members of SemiWiki.com. This blog first appeared on SemiWiki on February 22, 2015.

1:1 Interview with Mel Li (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1 …)

TV:  Tell me about the Lab on a Chip?

ML: The lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single chip of only millimeters to a few square centimeters in size. LOCs deal with the handling of extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico liters. The notion of the “Lab-on-a-Chip” generally indicates the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, primarily dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis.  My previous work examined the design and validation of a LOC for screening blood samples to determine optimal personalized drugs and their respective dosages for specific patients to prevent heart attacks. A lot of those techniques were first inspired by the fact that tools requiring the examination, characterization and integration of the sophisticated hardware controls are made available.

TV: Describe your post doctorate work and bio medical engineering?

ML: I worked on research projects that are helping us to better understand and detect early heart disease.  My current research work involves measurements for fluid migration over surfaces then discussing those applications for medical diagnostics. My works also involve motor control for fluorescence microscopy for applications in life sciences.  This work involves spectrum study of fluorescent DNA or proteins. This graduate work is related to the building and diagnostic device which can measure at microscale, pinpoint dosage of drugs to show visibility of early signs of heart disease. The medical application revolves around a low cost infectious disease as well as looking at tuberculosis and malaria. The idea is to provide a breakthrough in what typically required extensive cost, lots of lab work and long examination to be replaced with a low cost and easily administered solution. The application is very similar to taking a sample of mucous or saliva; this is sort of like a pregnancy test. We collaborate with large industrial partners such as GE Healthcare and hopefully we’ll be able to produce a commercially viable product in time.

TV:  How are AVR Microcontrollers being used with the Arduino in your cosplay costume

ML: I use the ATmega168 (via the development and application of the Arduino Duemilanove board) for this costume. The microcontroller is used to control the color, power and timing of the lights on the costume through shift registers. The cosplay costume using this controller chip is the one pictured here.

I also use the ATmega328 (via the Arduino Uno/Uno R3 board) for the lab projects previously described.  Specific tasks for the controller include driving the position and timing of a servo motor and/or linear actuator, as well as switching power on and off from an AC wall socket to a high powered, wide spectrum LED light source. Additionally, it was also used in a costume where it again controlled color, power and timing of LED’s, but these were driven using normal (non shift register) PWM signal controls. My costume using this controller chip is pictured here:

Figure 6: Photos by Mike Vickers

This is the ATmega32uF (via the Arduino Micro board) for my current project (in progress) that will be used for motor control.

 

* Mel’s costume is an original design inspired by a wide range of cyberpunk/fantasy artists including Masumune Shirow, Eric Canete, Joe Benitez and various modern gaming concept art. According to Mel, the process was a lot of fun and took approximately three months of on-and-off planning and building. The assembly is made from over 60 parts designed in Solidworks and sewn/cut/glued/laser-cut/heat-formed using various techniques. The costume includes color changing LEDs on the spine and front that are controlled by Arduino boards with Atmel AVR and ARM microcontrollers and onboard RGB controllers (respectively). The costume is powered by 16 AA batteries, 1 LiPo rechargeable battery, two 2032 coin cells and one 9-volt battery. In total, there are more than 70 LED’s on the entire costume and over 60 parts.

** Part one of this interview can be read here.

 

Biosensors you stick to your skin

CBS ran an interesting article about tiny biosensor patches that monitor your health while they are stuck to your arm or leg. The article referenced work done by engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University. You stick the biosensor to your skin like a temporary tattoo. The work was presented in a paper hidden behind a paywall at Sciencemag.org. The abstract reads:

“When mounted on the skin, modern sensors, circuits, radios, and power supply systems have the potential to provide clinical-quality health monitoring capabilities for continuous use, beyond the confines of traditional hospital or laboratory facilities. The most well-developed component technologies are, however, broadly available only in hard, planar formats. As a result, existing options in system design are unable to effectively accommodate integration with the soft, textured, curvilinear, and time-dynamic surfaces of the skin. Here, we describe experimental and theoretical approaches for using ideas in soft microfluidics, structured adhesive surfaces, and controlled mechanical buckling to achieve ultralow modulus, highly stretchable systems that incorporate assemblies of high-modulus, rigid, state-of-the-art functional elements. The outcome is a thin, conformable device technology that can softly laminate onto the surface of the skin to enable advanced, multifunctional operation for physiological monitoring in a wireless mode.”

This biosensor can monitor your health when adhered to your body.

What was telling about the paper were all the people involved:

Sheng Xu, Yihui Zhang, Lin Jia, Kyle E. Mathewson, Kyung-In Jang, Jeonghyun Kim, Haoran Fu, Xian Huang, Pranav Chava, Renhan Wang, Sanat Bhole, Lizhe Wang, Yoon Joo Na, Yue Guan, Matthew Flavin, Zheshen Han, Yonggang Huang, and MacArthur fellow John A. Rogers.

I am not sure if that is a list of grad student slaves or distinguished professors, but the CBS article neglected to mention that some of the authors represent Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, and Hanyang University in Seoul. This long list confirms the observation of my pal Ed Fong that system-level design requires engineers that are more social than IC designers and, I suspect, programmers. Ed has done both IC design and worked in complex electro-mechanical systems, so he should know. When you do a complex system like these biosensors it only stands to reason you would need a lot of people involved since there is so much expertise needed in so many areas.

The flexible sensor is like a temporary tattoo, it can bend and flex with your body in order to stay attached and keep working.

Here is a closeup.

And an ultra-close-up.

The new paper implements a complete system based on these biosensors. Adding a power system and a microcontroller and probably a radio is not trivial, hence the large crown of contributors. Another thing that makes me proud of the recent paper is that it has contributors from the US, China, and Korea. That is what I love about technology and engineering. While other industries and politicians give lip service to diversity, the tech industry has practiced it for decades. Here in Silicon Valley every tech company is more like the United Nations. As long as you know what you are doing, you can work anywhere you want, and that is something we all should be proud of.

Here is a biosensor as it would appear adhered to a heart.

Speaking of medical devices, my pal Ken Carroll went to work for Nanostim over 5 years ago. The idea is to make a heart pacemaker so small that you can just attach it to the heart. The wires of a pacemaker are one of the most problematic components, and they wear out and need replacement before the pacemaker battery dies.

This Nanostim pacemaker is 1/10 the size of a conventional one. It is implanted directly in the heart, needing no fragile wires to deliver the pulses to the heart.

Here is the Nanostim pacemaker in-situ.

Ken is a great IC designer, and if anyone can make a chip small enough and low-power enough, he can. I see Nanostim was acquired by St Jude’s Medical last year, so that is good news for all the people that worked for so many years to make this a reality. I have a mechanical engineer buddy that works at a laser eye surgery place, and he tells me it is really exacting work when you have to keep the FDA happy.

Intelligent MCUs for Low Power Designs

By Florence Chao, Senior Field Marketing Manager, MCU Business Development

Industrial and consumer devices using ARM® Cortex®-M4

Blood glucose meters, sport watches, game controllers and accessories, guess what they all have in common. Yes, like a lot of other industrial and consumer devices, they run on batteries and demand long or extended battery life. As an engineer, this translates into a key challenge when designing an embedded computing system. You need a central heart—in this case a microcontroller—that consumes as little power as possible in both active and static modes yet doesn’t sacrifice performance.  The Atmel® SAM4L ARM® Cortex®-M4 based series is designed with this in mind.

The SAM4L microcontroller redefines low power, delivering the lowest power consumption in its class in active mode (90uZ/MHz) as well as in static mode with full RAM retention running. It also delivers the shortest wake-up time (1.5us). At the same time, this is the most efficient microcontroller available today, achieving up to 28 CoreMark/mA.

The SAM4L series integrates Atmel’s proprietary picoPower® technology

The SAM4L series integrates Atmel’s proprietary picoPower® technology, which ensures the devices are developed from the ground up—from transistor design to clocking options—to consume as little power as possible. In addition, Atmel Sleepwalking technology allows the peripherals to make intelligent decisions and wake up the system upon qualifying events at the peripheral level.

In this video, you will see how the SAM4L microcontroller supports multiple power configurations to allow the engineer to optimize its power consumption in different use cases. You will also see another good feature of the SAM4L series, Power Scaling, which is a technique to adjust the internal regulator output voltage to further reduce power consumption provided by the integrated Backup Power Manager Module. In addition, the SAM4L series comes with two regulator options to supply system power based on the application requirement. While the buck/switching regulator delivers much higher efficiency and is operational from 2 to 3.6V. The linear regulator has higher noise immunity and operates from 1.68 to 3.6V.

The Atmel® SAM4L ARM® Cortex®-M4 based Microcontroller

It’s all about system intelligence and conserving energy. Simply put, the SAM4L microcontroller is your choice if you are designing a product that requires long battery life but you don’t want to sacrifice performance.  To get started, learn more about Atmel SAM4L Xplained Pro Evaluation and Starter Kits.