Openwater’s Open-Motion wearable earns open-source hardware certification

Openwater says its Open-Motion research wearable has become the first biomedical research device to earn certification from the Open Source Hardware Association. The milestone underscores how open hardware could speed biomedical research, with Open-Motion already in use at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Birmingham.

Why it matters: - Openwater’s Open-Motion certification gives biomedical researchers a standardized open-source hardware benchmark for a research device. - The company says the open design model can reduce duplicated work and shorten development cycles for medical technologies. - Open-Motion is currently for research use only and is not cleared for clinical or diagnostic use. - The device is already supporting stroke-related research at major universities, including work on large vessel occlusion detection and stroke recovery.

What happened: - Openwater announced that Open-Motion earned certification from the Open Source Hardware Association, or OSHWA. - The company said the certification makes Open-Motion the first biomedical research device to receive OSHWA certification. - The announcement was tied to the Open Healthware Conference in San Francisco on July 9-10. - Openwater described Open-Motion as a hemodynamic blood flow monitor and one of the company’s flagship open-source devices.

The details: - OSHWA certification is a standardized signal that an open hardware product meets open-source hardware requirements. - Openwater says Open-Motion’s hardware designs are fully accessible for researchers and developers to study, modify and build upon. - The company says that access creates a reusable hardware foundation for biomedical research across institutions. - Open-Motion is being used at the University of Pennsylvania for large vessel occlusion detection. - Open-Motion is also being used at the University of Birmingham for stroke recovery research. - Dan Blizinski, Openwater’s director of open source, said at the conference that the medical device industry could benefit from the collaborative development model used in enterprise software. - Blizinski said medical device development still happens largely in isolation, which Openwater believes slows progress. - Openwater’s open infrastructure approach includes freely available designs, source code, patents and safety data under open-source licenses. - Openwater says that approach is meant to lower hardware R&D costs that can keep life-saving technologies out of reach for many people. - Aaron Timm, Openwater’s CEO, said the certification tells researchers exactly what they are getting and allows them to inspect, modify and build on the platform without asking permission. - Openwater said the certification should help a research platform compound over time and compress development timelines across the field. - The company’s website for more information is Openwater. - Openwater’s social media page is Openwater on LinkedIn.

Between the lines: - The certification is a credibility signal as much as a technical milestone, because it formalizes Openwater’s open-source approach in a field that often treats hardware as proprietary. - Openwater is framing openness as a way to make medical innovation more collaborative, lower cost and easier to replicate across research sites. - The company is also positioning open-source hardware as a faster path from research to broader medical development, even before clinical clearance.

What's next: - Openwater says it will continue developing Open-Motion and Open-LIFU as collaborative research platforms. - The company is likely to use the certification to broaden adoption among researchers and institutions working on noninvasive medical technologies. - Openwater also plans to keep building its open-source medical technology ecosystem around shared designs and safety data.