Nordic Semiconductor-powered automated smart home solutions support U.S. affordable smart housing initiative

NousLogic has announced a suite of smart home health and remote monitoring solutions for an affordable housing initiative partnered with AIA (AI-transformative Accommodation) LLC in California, U.S. The advanced residential design project forms part of a collaborative program with the UCI (University of California, Irvine) Center for Real Estate at the Paul Merage Business School, to develop business plans for low-cost smart housing using automated services. 

Nordic nRF52840 SoC supervises sensors 

The three NousLogic solutions are all based on Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52840 System-on-Chip (SoC). The nRF52840 supervises each device’s integrated sensors and provides Bluetooth® LE wireless connectivity for short-range wireless communication and device commissioning. In addition, the solutions support the use of Amazon Sidewalk’s long range CSS/LoRa – a low-data rate, wireless communication protocol designed to provide connectivity to devices outside the range of a home Wi-Fi network, or that depend on a nearby mobile phone or proprietary gateway for a Cloud connection. 

“The simplicity and versatility of these combined technologies enabled us to quickly launch innovative solutions for three distinct markets: smart ‘aging-in-place’/assisted living remote monitoring services; a cardiac wearable sensor patch with ‘AI-on-the-edge’ capability; and an automated, real time utility reader for smart city applications,” explains Hoang Nhu, CEO of NousLogic. 

The ‘NousLogic Smart Home Health/Aging-in-Place Platform’ employs the ‘NousLogic Smart Hub’ which serves as a bridge to upload data from local Bluetooth LE/NFC devices to associated Cloud servers where data analytics and AI-based algorithms offer automated remote patient monitoring (RPM) services and recommendations. With Amazon Sidewalk long-range support, this platform is particularly useful for providing RPM services to households that do not have access to or are unable to afford a monthly home Internet service or cellular service charges. 

The ‘NousLogic Smart Cardiac Sensor Patch/Wearable Platform’ provides timely detection and diagnosis of arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), which is crucial for effective treatment and management. For example, the nRF52840 SoC’s powerful 64 MHz, Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) integrated in the cardiac wearable sensor patch can be used to analyze raw ECG data to detect heart disease symptoms or other conditions where the heart rate is outside the normal range. These patient conditions, obtained via real-time “AI-on-the-edge” processing, are then uploaded to the Cloud to notify supervising healthcare workers via Amazon Sidewalk’s long range CSS/LoRa wireless network, without the need for a nearby smartphone used as a gateway.  

The ‘NousLogic Smart AI-Based Water/Electric Meter Reader’ is designed to overcome the challenge of traditional water meter reading systems that often rely on manual inspections or periodic visits by utility personnel, which can be inefficient and prone to errors. Integrating advanced metering infrastructure with Amazon Sidewalk expands the reach of smart water/electric/gas meters for efficient, cost-effective, and widespread meter data collection with other real-time benefits such as water leak detection, anti-tampering alerts, and other AI-based household activity monitoring capabilities. 

Nordic solutions enable rapid Amazon Sidewalk integration 

“Unlike other wireless standards, an Amazon Sidewalk-based product offers a true plug-and-play solution for users, with no monthly wireless service charge, supporting long range, smart city applications,” says Nhu. “Nordic’s low power, highly integrated nRF52840 SoC and nRF Connect SDK [Software Development Kit] enable rapid integration of Amazon Sidewalk in our diverse product roadmaps.”

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