Animal Thermometer Update

A provider of electronics assembly and PCB design solutions for various industries had launched an animal thermometer specialized for veterinary use. 

The existing thermometer was a high-cost option, and lacked the capability to automate and optimize temperature monitoring over the total head of livestock. Therefore, the customer company lost business to their competitors.

The PSA team needed to create a lighter and cheaper version of the existing thermometer for animals and equip it with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) support. Also, it was necessary to speed up temperature measurement by applying a predictive algorithm.

To make the solution more affordable, we decided to reuse an already existing platform, including MCU, other hardware components and code sources. Our team updated the existing firmware to tune it for usage with new LCD and hardware buttons, thus providing a more cost-effective option.

To achieve the goal of the project we:

• Realized a design for hardware, enclosure, and firmware for the specialized Animal thermometer, with a focus on reducing the overall Bill of Materials;
• Provided a small-sized, water-resistant, and ruggedized enclosure;
• Implemented fast temperature sensing and visualization features;
• Added calibration modes, battery management, and temperature pre-sets for different animals;
• Added a heater and two hardware control buttons for the Alarm Setting and Records View;
• Provided device configuration, data collection, storage, and transfer to mobile devices via Bluetooth;
• Maintained the measurements’ time and precision within the required range. 

• Hardware / Firmware / Industrial design
• UI update with new features
• Logic implementation
• Quality Assurance