Together with our valuable customer in the segment of personal safety equipment, we have created a prototype of a smart badge that collects monitoring data from various smart wearables and indicates the danger.
Our Task and Challenge
Battery Time Has to Last More than Whole Working Shift
Our customer is a major producer of personal safety products for industry companies. We were tasked with creating a badge to protect the employees during their daily shifts.
The badge is fitted to a person’s working suit and collects the monitoring data from various smart wearables. The badge should indicate the danger by flashing red lights and a buzzer alarm to detect instant life or health hazards.
The overall functionality must fit into a small device with low weight and an extended battery lifetime. The battery must be rechargeable, and the charging must take place in a simple and robust way between the two working shifts.
Solution
ID Card-Sized Smart Badge
We were asked to create several prototypes covering all the device design competencies, i.e., mechanical, hardware, and software design.
A third-party supplier provided cloud connection support for statistical data storage and analysis.
We created a device the size of a slightly thicker ID card, and fitted it with all the electronics, including the BLE chip, LED stuff, battery, and charging circuit.
We also developed firmware in the user space of the BLE chip, implemented the state machine, and suggested the concept of data collection and upload to the cloud.
Business Value
Interconnection for Personal Safety Wearables
It seems necessary to collect some small portion of data from the personal safety equipment to identify health hazards in various industrial segments.
Helpful is also the function of checking whether an employee has the proper personal protective gear in specific areas.
How It Is Made
Tiny Bluetooth Low Energy Device with Data Collection
The BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) chip is permanently connected to the safety equipment dedicated to an employee and checks if the user is wearing the equipment in the areas where it is mandatory.
The microcontroller also acquires important monitoring data, e.g., hazardous noise level or critical health parameters of the employee, and uploads the collected data to the cloud during the charging time between the shifts.
The instant indication of the employee status is done by bright light LEDs controlled via an LED driver.
Therefore, the employee, his colleagues, or managers can see immediately if the employee is missing any necessary equipment or if he or she needs urgent health assistance or a health check.
Client
One of the world’s top producers of personal safety equipment in wearables.
Next Solutions
Since the foundation of Consilia in 2004, we have finished and supported dozens of projects.
Services Used in this Case
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