A wearable standard

It is difficult to get more purely technical than semiconductor devices, but sometimes, there are serious business implications to developments occurring down at the chip level. One such could well be the Wearables Reference Platform (WaRP) just introduced  by Freescale Semiconductor.

This is a flexible platform built on a hybrid architecture that is intended to help developers, and their businesses, get up to speed rapidly with developing wearable products of one type or another. This is set to be one of the key consume product development areas of 2014 and beyond, and one of the key factors in getting it to grow as a market will be rapidly establishing some underlying standards that allow devices to collaborate, both with each other and many `infotainment' services.

Freescale’s goal is to enable an open-source, scalable reference platform that gives OEMs the building blocks they need to rapidly develop a wide range of wearable product designs from a common platform.

“This new solution is engineered to dramatically streamline the design and development of exciting new wearables products. It allows designers and OEMs to go from concept to prototype as quickly as the market is changing.”

Unlike other wearable solutions, the new platform is not limited to just one form factor or product category. The highly flexible, system-level design kit supports embedded wireless charging, incorporates processors and sensors within a hybrid architecture for scalability and flexibility, and comes with open-source software.

The wearables reference platform (WaRP) is engineered to help developers exercise their design creativity in a wide range of multiple vertical segments such as sports monitors, smart glasses, activity trackers, smart watches and healthcare/medical applications.

“Wearables represent one of the ultimate edge node sensors for the Internet of Things, and hold tremendous promise for equipment makers, service providers and consumers alike,” said Rajeev Kumar, director of worldwide marketing and business development for Freescale’s Microcontrollers business. “This new solution is engineered to dramatically streamline the design and development of exciting new wearables products. It allows designers and OEMs to go from concept to prototype as quickly as the market is changing.”

According to Juniper Research, retail revenue from smart wearable devices will reach $19 billion by 2018, compared with $1.4 billion in 2013. The firm also projects that sales of smart wearable devices will approach 130 million units by 2018, which is 10 times higher than the number estimated to sell in 2013.

WaRP simplifies development by addressing many of the top technology challenges of the wearables market – connectivity, usability, battery life and miniaturisation, freeing developers to focus on creating differentiated features. The platform is built on Freescale’s implementation of the Cortex-A9 processor, which in turn is based on the widely used ARM architecture that lies at the heart of most smartphones and tablets. It also features Freescale’s Xtrinsic turn-key pedometer, electronic compass and ARM Cortex Kinetis microcontroller.

In fact, WaRP is a result of collaboration between Freescale, Kynetics and Revolution Robotics. Kynetics provides the expertise for the platform’s software, while Revolution Robotics supplies the solution’s hardware. Freescale, Kynetics and Revolution Robotics worked together to develop a platform that is both scalable and modular for various usage models in the wearables market.

This hybrid architecture-based platform enables customers to address different and new verticals as the market evolves, and to scale and customise their designs from both a hardware and software perspective to develop a product, or even an entire portfolio.

Development Support will come from a nonprofit, community-based organisation, and the solution's hardware and software will be open sourced and community-driven. No closed development tools or licensing fees are required when used in conjunction with open source resources. In addition, WaRP will have its own .org community to drive innovation in the market.