Herga launches a range of footswitches featuring the Bluetooth® Smart closed network

Herga launches a range of footswitches featuring the Bluetooth® Smart closed network

Bury St. Edmunds – UK – September 2014: Herga Technology, the medical footswitch and hand control specialist, has launched a new range of single and multipedal footswitches that utilise the intelligent and power friendly Bluetooth^® Smart closed network. Available as a wireless switch technology across a wide selection of Herga’s popular footswitch models that are widely used in medical applications, the battery powered switch and separate remote receiver provides a safe and economic standards-based low-power remote switching solution that is up to 5 times more battery life efficient than comparative manufacturers offerings. Also known as Bluetooth 4.0 and Bluetooth Low Energy, the new range is firmly aimed at and is well suited to medical equipment applications.  

With a 10 m range and typical latency of less than 100 milliseconds, the footswitch and receiver system can be used with up to two transmitting switching devices, each with up to eight switch functions.  A simple LED assisted pairing procedure allows straightforward set-up whilst the LED display also provides battery status indication. Furthermore, Herga’s Bluetooth Smart range features a user-selectable sleep function that allows a choice of 15 or 60 minutes timeout for further battery conservation - with ‘auto-wake from sleep’ reconnection on the press of the pedal. The separate receiver PCB requires 0 – 5V DC at 100mA and has active low output switching.

The footswitches meet the low-voltage directive, REACH, ROHS and WEEE approvals and have been designed to the latest European and USA radio type approvals. Certification and compliance covers all aspects of the R&TTE Directive 1999/5/EC including effective use of frequency and EMC, for medical electrical equipment compliance to IEC 60601-1-2.

All footswitches have an IP67 rating as standard in ergonomic designs that have been well proven over many years in both electric and pneumatic switch versions. The new Bluetooth footswitches are available in a wide range of standard colours with customer logos as an option.