Low-power embedded devices are widely used in sensor networks, monitoring systems, and industrial applications. These devices typically rely on internal flash memory, where storage is constrained by bootloaders, communication stacks, and other software. Adding external memory increases cost and energy consumption, making efficient memory utilization essential. This article presents key design concepts for developing an efficient, lightweight, and reliable embedded filesystem. It introduces an improved version of the configurable flash filesystem (CFFS), designed to maximize memory utilization, minimize flash wear, and support portability across hardware platforms and operating systems. Reliability mechanisms integrated into CFFS are also discussed. We compare CFFS with widely used low-power embedded filesystems—LittleFS, SPIFFS, and FDS—highlighting its advantages in memory efficiency and reduced flash memory wear. Experimental results demonstrate that CFFS achieves up to 99% memory utilization while significantly reducing erase operations.

This paper presents the development and testing of the AP-NURSE monitoring tool aimed to ease the everyday life of patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases as well as those who take care of such patients. It summarises the activities carried out as part of the international Interreg CE niCE-life project. The team of STU designed, developed, constructed, and tested the AP-NURSE intelligent tool. The paper starts with demographic information on Slovakia. It highlights the fact that population aging is a significant issue, which requires measures to mitigate its consequences at local and European levels. The next part describes the final design of AP-NURSE Home and Care devices and their versions, including details on their hardware and software. A significant part of the paper deals with the testing of AP-NURSE in both laboratory and authentic environments. The laboratory testing was carried out directly at STU. The final testing in an authentic environment was conducted in two social and healthcare centres in Bratislava and in Warsaw. After the activities described in this paper, AP-NURSE reached TRL-6. The AP-NURSE Home platform developed based on the ESP microcontrollers demonstrated the best functionality and has the potential to be used in real practice.