The Vocera Smartbadge is a small, lightweight, wearable communication device purpose-built for healthcare. The Smartbadge is powered by the Vocera Platform, enabling interoperability with the majority of clinical and operational systems used in healthcare.

The Smartbadge gives caregivers the agility to respond to the complex and unpredictable patient care environment by enabling real-time situational awareness and allowing them to receive a prioritized alert and alarm notifications, make and answer calls hands-free, and send messages securely.

The salient features of the Smartbadge are:

Hands-free calling and answering calls.
Smooth, natural bi-directional conversation.
Seamless texting as done on a smartphone.
Receive phone calls, messages, and alerts with essential information available at a glance.
Present priority items to the end-user.
Integration of hardware, software, and firmware within a single device.
Real-time situational awareness and help in reducing interruption fatigue.

For detailed documentation, refer to the following documents:

Vocera V-Series Smartbadge (User Guide)
Vocera Release Notes Library (Previous versions of the release notes)
Vocera Device Configuration Guide (Information on firmware installation)
Feature Applicability (Information on the minimum required server and firmware versions)

Supported Versions of Vocera Servers

Before installing this firmware, ensure that the following Vocera products are installed:

Vocera Voice Server 5.11.1

This firmware version is incompatible with a standalone Voice Server or a combination of the Voice Server and Vocera Messaging Platform. It requires an integrated environment with both the Voice Server and the Edge Server.

New and Enhanced Features

This section summarizes the new features.

New Features in 5.7.1.13

This release adds support for Edge server and mobile app enabling the following features:

Property to control encryption and mutual authentication―A new property has been introduced to manage encryption and mutual authentication in Smartbadge.
Encryption of Smartbadge to Voice Server signaling communication―The following Smartbadge to Voice Server connections have been secured with DTLS/TLS encryption.
- Smartbadge to Signaling Gateway signaling connection
- Smartbadge to Updater server connection
- Smartbadge to Log Collector service connection
Enhanced call security with SRTP encryption―The following call scenarios have been secured with SRTP encryption:
- Smartbadge to Smartbadge
- Smartbadge to Genie
- Smartbadge to VSTG
Mutual authentication―Mutual authentication occurs between the Smartbadge and the VS/VMP server, ensuring secure communication between both entities.
Badge Firmware file signing and verification―To ensure the authenticity and integrity of files transferred and installed on the Smartbadge over the air, a digital signature verification process has been implemented.

Fixed Issues

The following list contains fixes and improvements for firmware release and the V5000 product.

Known Issues

The following section lists the known issues in this firmware release and the V5000 Smartbadge product.

Known Issues in 5.7.1.13

The following list provides information about known product issues in the 5.7.1.13 firmware and the Vocera Smartbadge:

G5W-7356 V5000 Smartbadge performs complete 802.1X authentication when it roams to a new Access Point (APs) that has a profile with 802.11w and OKC enabled.
G5W-6344 Message indicating successful PIN setup pops up for less than a second.

Vocera V5000 Release Notes

Version 5.7.1.13

Release Date: February 2025

Updated: February 24, 2025