Are BLE health related profiles continua compliant?

[helpme]

The Health Device Profile is continua compliant. Are BLE health related profiles like Heart rate profile, thermometer profile continua compliant as well? Do these profiles follow the IEEE 11073 standard? Some customers are asking whether certain medical devices are continua compliant.

[Susheel Nuguru]

The answer is not really straight forward. The Bluetooth medical profiles are made to be continua ‘transcodable’. In order to transcode from Bluetooth to Continua, the Bluetooth Medical Device Working Group has published a transcoding white paper detailing all one need to do for transcoding the data.

In our SDK however, we implement only the Bluetooth specification and we do not specifically look at any extra ‘requirements’ for transcoding that could be found in this white paper (meaning that if something is optional per Bluetooth specification, this transcoding white paper might make it mandatory in order to do the transcoding and be continua compliant).

Continua also publishes guidelines to follow for being continua compliant, and they are based on this white paper. The link to white paper for transcoding can be found here

I hope this helps !

[helpme]

I am puzzled whether there is a need for BLE medical profiles to be continua compliant. There is not even a need to use the medical profiles in the first place. A medical device maker can create custom GATT profiles and write a mobile app. This way, the device maker can save money on bluetooth qualification. Did I miss anything?