9 November 2016
Qorvo expands capabilities of voice-activated, smart home assistants
Qorvo Inc of Greensboro, NC and Hillsboro, OR, USA (which provides core technologies and RF solutions for mobile, infrastructure and defense applications) says that the GP712 radio chip (which expands the ability of consumers to control smart home networks with spoken commands) is now in production after being introduced earlier this year by GreenPeak Technologies of Utrecht, The Netherlands (now Qorvo’s Low Power Wireless business, after the firm’s acquisition in April).
The GP712 radio chip supports multiple communication protocols in a single-chip design suited to connected-home applications. When integrated into virtual personal assistants (VPAs), the GP712 enables the VPA to respond to voice commands and communicate directly with millions of smart-home devices that use ZigBee and Thread protocols. Previously, a separate gateway was required to connect the VPA speaker with the ZigBee and Thread sentrollers.
VPA-enabled wireless speakers – such as Amazon Echo and Google Home – have microphones that link consumers directly to cloud services using voice commands. According to ABI Research, more than 120 million voice recognition-enabled devices are forecast to ship annually by 2021.
“This new capability allows designers to create more capable voice-controlled smart home assistants that directly support a wider variety of devices and standards,” says Cees Links, general manager of Qorvo’s Low Power Wireless business.
Live demonstrations of smart home applications, as well as other solutions from Qorvo, are being featured in booth #142 (hall A3) at the Electronica 2016 trade fair in Munich, Germany (8-11 November).
Qorvo to acquire ultra-low-power, short-range RF SoC firm GreenPeak
