TI Chronos eZ430 and RF/USB Support Dongles
The Chronos eZ430 sports watch provides a personal area network and sensor node development platform in a sports watch form factor. Based on the CC430 SoC with integrated RF wireless, it's ready for your Internet of things (IoT) applications. This reference design can be modified for wireless display or for data logging of temperature, time, heart rate, altitude, pressure, and motion sensing.
To assist in development, Texas Instruments (TI) provides the schematics, parts lists, and PCB design files that will help transition your ideas into wireless wrist-based products.
The reference design includes the Chronos system center on the CC430 system-on-a-chip (SoC) IC. This system has an internal MSP430 microcontroller and sub 1-GHz wireless transceiver.
CC430 Functional Block Diagram
The watch has interfacing I/O devices that include a 96-segment LCD display, pressure sensor, 3-axis accelerometer (for motion sensing), temperature, and real-time clock. It can also be paired with CC430 or CC11xx based wireless heart-rate monitors, pedometers, or other RF devices. Essentially, you can build a health monitor or data-logger into a watch.
The reference design comes complete with firmware, hardware designs, and design files. A host of demo applications are available for Windows platforms such as wireless mouse control from the watch, acceleration data display, and PC keyboard mapping.
The Chronos disassembly is outlined in the Users' Guide and allows for access to batteries and the controller board.
Development and debugging is handled by the standard set of MSP430 development tools and Chronos development software for Windows or Linux.
There are specific sets of tools for the CC430 that embed wireless I/O. One example is the CC1101 wireless transceiver IC which uses the system dongles. The included dongles allow for software uploading wirelessly.
Dongle RF Transceiver Schematic
With the examples, schematics, and PCB designs provided, TI delivers a springboard to get your IoT sports watch design up and running in short order. The MSP430 allows for data logging and convenient presentation of results to the user -- just add your area of expertise or pre-developed sensors like heart-rate monitors for a finished product.
Texas Instruments has sponsored promotion of their industrial communications solutions on ENGINEERING.com. They have no editorial input to this post; all opinions are mine. Bruce Schreiner