Meju, for wireless functionality of wearable monitoring system
Adoption of Nordic nRF52832 Bluetooth 5.2/LE SoC
Wireless data transfer to smartphones with Bluetooth 4.0 or higher


Nordic Semiconductor announced on the 23rd that Meju Co., Ltd., a domestic digital healthcare solutions manufacturer, has selected Nordic's 'nRF52832' Bluetooth® 5.2/Bluetooth LE (Bluetooth Low Energy) multiprotocol SoC for the wireless connectivity function of its 'HiCardi' wearable ECG (Electrocardiogram) monitoring system.

Meju's new wearable ECG monitoring system consists of a lightweight ECG tag, a smartphone app, and a cloud-based platform, and is designed for use in healthcare facilities as well as by individuals who want to monitor their heart condition.

The Hicardi Tag features an adhesive patch that can be attached to the patient's chest, allowing continuous heart monitoring throughout the day, even while resting or exercising. It is also suitable for bedside monitoring or as a replacement for an ECG Holter monitor.

This wearable device measures biosignals including one ECG channel, heart rate, body temperature, respiration rate, and posture. The nRF52832 SoC's 64MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with Floating Point Unit (FPU) provides ample processing power for the tag to continuously record ECG waveform data and enable real-time arrhythmia detection on the device.

Additionally, the Nordic SoC wirelessly transmits data to the user's Bluetooth 4.0 (or later) smartphone, enabling access to heart health data via the iOS and Android-based Hicardi app. This data, along with the user's location, is transmitted to the cloud, where healthcare professionals can access this personalized data via the Hicardi web platform, making it useful for remote patient monitoring and telemedicine applications.

The tag is powered by a rechargeable 50mAh lithium polymer (Li-Poly) battery, and the ultra-low power characteristics of the Nordic SoC provide at least 16 hours of battery life between recharges. The nRF52832 has been designed to minimize power consumption with features such as the 2.4GHz radio's 5.5mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully-automatic power management system that reduces power consumption by up to 80% compared to Nordic's nRF51 Series SoCs.

Nordic's nRF52832 multiprotocol SoC integrates an Arm processor and a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5.2, ANT™, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) with -96dB RX sensitivity, along with 512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM.

The nRF52832 SoC is supported by Nordic's S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certified RF software protocol stack for advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice has Bluetooth LE roles such as Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster, and Observer, supports up to 20 connections, and can perform each role simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Hicardi has received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and is scheduled to be launched in Korea in the third quarter of 2020 and in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2021.