It’s been a good week for embedded M2M, there’s some news you should get caught up on, so let’s get to it:

Aging at home. It may sound like a new sitcom, writes TMC’s (News - Alert) Deborah Hirsch, but it’s a concept that allows families and caregivers to keep a “virtual eye” on their elderly loved ones to help them remain at home in comfortable, familiar surroundings as long as possible.

To enable this, many companies today are developing wireless devices that connect a senior living at home with caregivers at another site, to make sure the elderly person remains safe at all times.

The growth in wireless monitoring devices – which include blood pressure cuffs, glucose monitors for diabetics, and alerts that let caregivers know if a patient has fallen, not eaten, or has wandered off – has been driven equally by an aging population and technology breakthroughs.

Sprint (News - Alert)  and TMC recently presented a Webinar on the Remote and Home and healthcare market

Companies now offer remote monitoring devices that can be integrated with electronic health records (EHRs) and disease management systems that can simply be plugged into an outlet in the patient’s home and send messages back to a caregiver, according to Steve Wheeler, director of business development and sales for Ideal Life.

Ideal Life has thousands of patients in hospitals, on health plans, senior community centers and many other healthcare facilities that are using the company's devices, said Wheeler at the webinar.   Wheeler added that the use of his company's remote monitoring devices has resulted in a 50 percent reduction in congestive heart failure readmissions in the populations it serves.

TMC’s Rajani Baburajan wrote this past week that FreightWatch Security Net (FSN), an Austin, Texas-based provider of embeddable, covert tracking solutions, announced it will launch the next generation, portable, battery-powered assisted-GPS tracker at the CTIA (News - Alert)  Enterprise & Applications 2011 show Oct. 11-13, 2011, in San Diego.

At the event, FSN will feature its complete line of covert tracking solutions including the Geo F3 Multi-Function Covert Tracker, a commercial class, location tracking and sensor monitoring device, designed and manufactured by FSN.

Geo F3 features the technology of its predecessor, the Geo F2 Pill Bottle assisted-GPS tracker. It features superior location accuracy and reliable reporting based on Qualcomm (News - Alert) gpsOne assisted location-position technology.

"The Geo F3 combines the best of our covert GPS tracking technology and functionality in a single package at an industry-leading price," said Bill Games, president, FreightWatch Security Net, in a statement. "The F3 form factor is compact and fits in the smallest FSN tracking case which allows the F3 to operate in impaired environments where most GPS trackers do not.”

And Calvin Azuri noted that IMetrik M2M Solutions Inc., provider of embedded wireless tracking solutions, has announced that it will be launching the "Big Brother" innovative campaign to highlight the capabilities of its Machine-to-Machine total solution which has been developed to enable customers to both control and monitor their mobile and fixed assets from any location across the globe.

Big Brother is the M2M-Chip developed by iMetrikM2M which can be installed into an equipment, appliance, or device and machinery either owned or sold by the client. Once embedded, the chip provides monitoring and controlling capabilities over both fixed and mobile assets regardless of its location. The iMetrik (News - Alert) M2M Platform has been developed to transfer information and commands from the source to either a desktop or smart phone, thereby providing control over assets in real-time.

In a release, Jonathan Barratt, iMetrik M2M’s Chief Technology Officer, said that a “Plug and Play” solution makes it possible for the non-initiated to control and monitor any appliance, equipment or other asset, wherever it is located by simply using a computer or smartphone. Our ‘M2M-Chip’ working with our web-based application makes it all possible.”