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By Jack Cutts, CEA Member Relations
On Tuesday, October 16, CEA?s Health and Fitness Technology Working Group held a face-to-face meeting at Industry Forum in San Francisco. On the agenda were two different, but complementary, speakers to help CEA members make
sense of the health and fitness tech spaces and some of the tools to ultimately bring products to market.
Kabir Kasargod of Qualcomm Life was first on the agenda with an overview of Qualcomm?s 2Net Platform. A diminutive white box, the product fills an acute and important need in a nascent market like fitness tech. A major stumbling block to product adoption and ubiquity in this new market is a plethora of sensors and air interfaces between products or between products and a single data collection point. In the context of fitness tech, for example, any number of radio technologies can do the relatively simple task of data transfer but the right radio depends on a number of factors including power consumption, product size, where on the body the product is designed to be used and how much data needs to be transferred at any given time. The 2Net device can aggregate all of the most common device inputs and output a single 3G uplink to Qualcomm Life?s cloud-based data aggregation front-end.
Next up was Dr. Samir Damani of La Jolla, California-based MD Revolution. A 
practicing cardiologist, Dr. Damani and the MD Revolution team discussed how they are using mHealth technologies to drive positive health outcomes. MD Revolution offers patients customized health programs that involve personal health and fitness technologies at every step of the process. To evaluate and monitor patients, the team uses technology that tracks key health and fitness measurements and then uses that data to improve health outcomes. MD Revolution is doing what many health and fitness technology visionaries have been predicting for years ? using technology to drive health improvements in a way that is accessible to the average American.
Following Dr. Damani?s talk, the working group?s discussion turned to how tools like these can help bring health and fitness CE devices to market. It became apparent, after 90 minutes of discussion, that there is a major need to build awareness among CE companies about just how many tools are out there to bring health and fitness technology products to market. Between new health and fitness-focused Bluetooth device profiles, software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) available, the technical building blocks are in place for coherent product design. When asked about product testing and the possible need for FDA approval of some devices, the group learned that MD Revolution?s team can also shepherd manufacturers through device trials, seen as a major missing link in the go-to-market equation among some working group participants.
In all, the Health and Fitness Technology Working Group came away from its meeting with a more complete view of just how many tools are available to aid entry into the market. Product design issues like device connectivity and communication have been alleviated through widely adopted sensors and radios. Issues more specific to medical devices such as technical trials ? a process that has been completely opaque to the majority of traditional electronics companies ? are being addressed in meaningful ways and remove some of the final hurdles to entry in this market for more traditional CE device manufacturers.
Source: http://blog.ce.org/index.php/2012/10/31/cardiologist-and-technologist-help-connect-the-dots/
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