Connected health
Let Nordic's expertise help you deliver the health tech your customers rely upon
Nordic Bluetooth LE Audio-powered Doppler device delivers dependable wireless connectivity in surgical and clinical applications
24
Mar
2026
2026
Oslo, Norway
Remington Medical’s VascuChek employs Nordic’s nRF5340 SoC to provide low latency, high sound quality for reliably monitoring patient blood flow
A Nordic Semiconductor-powered Bluetooth® LE vascular Doppler system that has been FDA cleared for intraoperative use has been launched by medical device manufacturer, Remington Medical, Inc. ‘VascuChek®’ is a handheld, cordless ultrasound-based device that eliminates the need for tethered probes, and uses the Doppler effect to detect and listen to blood flow within blood vessels. This allows surgeons to check whether blood is still flowing properly in a vessel after repairing, bypassing or grafting it, for example.
The device emits an ultrasonic wave that detects frequency shifts caused by moving blood cells, turning these into audible sounds or signals clinicians can interpret. The Doppler audio is played either through a small speaker located internally in the transceiver handpiece, or a larger speaker in a speaker dock. Both the handpiece and the speaker dock employ a pre-certified u-blox NORA-B1 module built on Nordic’s dual-core nRF5340 multiprotocol SoC, enabling Bluetooth LE Audio wireless connectivity between the transceiver and the dock. Relaying the audio to the speaker dock enables both louder volume and improved clarity.
“VascuChek is a battery-powered device, so low power consumption is important, but high sound quality and low latency are non-negotiable,” says Michael Fuller - Principal R&D Electrical Engineer at Remington Medical, Inc. “Our customers obviously need high quality Doppler audio, but they also need it to be responsive and lag-free when searching for blood flow in the patient beneath the probe tip.
We were impressed that the nRF5340 SoC had sound quality right on par with the best Bluetooth Classic alternative, while also having the lowest latency
Michael Fuller - Principal R&D Electrical Engineer at Remington Medical, Inc.
LE Audio delivers superior sound quality
“We were initially skeptical that LE Audio could deliver high sound quality and minimal latency while also being low-power, so we performed side-by-side testing against several Bluetooth Classic modules. We were impressed that the nRF5340 SoC had sound quality right on par with the best Bluetooth Classic alternative, while also having the lowest latency.”
Both the transceiver handpiece and speaker dock are battery-powered (the dock can also be mains-powered), enabling cord-free portability for convenient use in the clinic or operating room. The handpiece employs a LiFePO4 rechargeable cell capable of lasting at least one full shift on a single charge—or a couple of hours of continuous use—thanks in part to the ultra-low power wireless capabilities of Nordic’s nRF5340 SoC. “We were pleased to see that switching our previous microcontroller to the nRF5340 kept the overall system well within our power budget, despite adding Bluetooth LE connectivity and wireless audio streaming,” says Fuller.
During development, medical device design and manufacturing company, Blur Product Development, complemented Remington Medical’s R&D team by providing engineering, firmware, prototype assembly and verification testing services, significantly reducing time to market and helping ensure FDA compliance on a rigorous timeline.
Fully-featured dual core SoC
“Blur had previous experience working with Nordic’s chipsets and suggested we look at the nRF5340 and its LE Audio implementation,” continues Fuller. “I liked the dual core architecture, with one core running our application and a second core running Nordic’s Bluetooth LE and LE Audio stacks that seamlessly orchestrate the on-chip radio. The Arm Cortex-M33 application core was actually an improvement over our previous microcontroller in terms of memory, performance and power consumption, and it had the hardware DSP we needed for audio processing.”
