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Mastering Thermal Management to Ensure Comfort and Safety in Wearable Devices

Thermal management is a critical factor in ensuring the design and safety of wearable devices. Wearables, including smartwatches, must effectively handle heat dissipation to function optimally. Given that smartwatches come into direct contact with the skin, careful temperature control is essential. Improper management of power dissipation in a smartwatch can lead to discomfort or even harm for the wearer.




Originally presented: October 9, 2024
Duration: 1 hour
Presented by:

Overview

The smartwatch is one of the most popular consumer electronics devices on the market.  Leading tech companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google continually introduce new models with enhanced features such as health monitoring, water resistance, crash detection, and more. The global smartwatch industry is projected to be 33.6 billion USD in 2024 and growing to 104 billion USD in 2032.

Thermal management is a critical factor in ensuring the design and safety of wearable devices. Wearables, including smartwatches, must effectively handle heat dissipation to function optimally. Given that smartwatches come into direct contact with the skin, careful temperature control is essential. Improper management of power dissipation in a smartwatch can lead to discomfort or even harm for the wearer.

Large companies struggle to successfully address the thermal design requirements of these wearables. On March 2, 2022, Fitbit announced a recall of its Ionic smartwatches. Their recall notice cautioned that the battery within the watch was prone to overheating and could cause a burn to its users. In September of the same year, some users reported that their Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 gave them 3rd degree burns while they were sleeping.

Key Takeaways

  • See the teardown results of the latest and most advanced designs from two of the world’s leading technology companies.
  • Learn about common thermal design practices used in wearables.
  • Understand the unique cooling challenges that arise from skin contact.
  • Improve your design process by combining simulation and test to enhance accuracy and gain deeper insight into the interaction between wearable and wearer.

Speaker

Guy Wagner, Director of Electronic Cooling Solutions, Siemens Digital Industries Software

Wagner has over 45 years of R&D experience in the electronics industry. His experience includes: IC and system cooling and packaging technology, disk drive design, thermal design of computer systems, medical and aerospace equipment, telephone switching systems, and consumer electronic products. Wagner’s expertise includes both electronics system cooling as well as cooling of IC packages, and he has authored and presented more than 40 papers at international technical conferences and has 29 patents. Prior to joining ECS, Wagner was Chief Scientist at HP in Fort Collins and a Member of the Technical Staff as Bell Laboratories.  He received his MS in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa.