A reference design for a smart pill bottle that will enable patients and healthcare workers to improve the tracking and logging of medicine intake.
Smart pill ref. design board layout—total assembled view(source: Maxim Integrated)
To cure any illness, timely intake of a prescribed medicine is very important. But it is not uncommon to skip a pill or two when there are multiple pills. To solve this problem, Maxim Integrated has provided a reference design for a smart pill bottle.
The MAXREFDES1150 from Maxim Integrated is a reference design for a smart pill bottle. The design incorporates a weight scale and utilises the Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor and log the real-time medicine intake of a patient. The reference design can also alert the patient and the healthcare staff about the quantity of the medicine for timely replacement. The main features of this reference design is its high accuracy, low power consumption, compatibility with the Mbed Platform and Bluetooth connectivity.
The reference design has a container where the patient needs to store the pill, it then allows the user to specify the number of pills and frequency and amount of each dosage. The reference design is capable of validating the timely consumption of pills based on the weight present in the container. The design also includes an audible buzzer if the smart pill bottle is left on its side or upside down.
The MAX11213 is a 16-bit ADC which provides accurate measurement of the contents inside the pill container. The reference design supports Arduino and ARM Mbed-enabled platforms. Moreover, it also supports Bluetooth low energy (BLE)-enabled modules. The MAXREFDES1150 is suitable for a wide variety of IoT measurement applications requiring accurate analogue-signal measurement and communication. The reference design also includes an Android APK with HMI technology. The APK can be used to configure the pills parameter and be updated if needed.
The reference design has been tested and verified. To simplify the designing process, Maxim Integrated as provided the complete set of Design Resources including schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout, and test files, which can be downloaded from here.
