The 2022 wireless market
The annual CES stood as every tech lover's mecca and a place to see futuristic concepts and all the latest gizmos and tech trends. However, as most of us could not visit the consumer electronics show this year, I curated some takeaways from Nordic Semiconductor's demos and live sessions during CES 2022.
As a low-power wireless connectivity technology provider, Nordic Semiconductor works with global companies visiting CES to showcase their latest innovations and products.?
A relatively large number of product demos included monitors and trackers. Today we can track everything from environmental variations to large items like cars and containers using long-range yet power-efficient cellular communication. We also see many gadgets tailored for the new hybrid home- and work life, keeping track of all aspects of your health as well as your pet. These products assist and become helpful to us as users because of their wireless and computational capabilities.
We invited the leaders in connectivity standards associations, smart-home development, and wireless device manufacturers to discuss IoT-enabled products' status and future.
We covered the semiconductor market, the new Matter standard, and wireless trends during several live CES sessions.?
Session 1: A dynamic wireless landscape
Anne, Geir, and Kjetil talked about challenges and the future of semicon. industry.
After a period of unusual global semiconductor shortage, our Executive VPs Geir Langeland and Kjetil Holstad talked about the balancing act Nordic Semiconductor faces to provide OEMs and designers at all levels with enough wireless SoCs and SiPs in today's strong market.
Part of this is due to Nordic's comprehensive portfolio of products for wireless designers:
New OEM strategies
Today we work with our customers to apply several strategies to reduce risk in operations and logistics.?
Step one is by simplifying their PCB designs. Reducing the bill of material (BOM) to a single system-on-chip (SoC) design vs. separate MCU and RF chips enables OEMs to keep a single point of contact for allocating wireless material.?
Secondly, companies are now increasingly accepting a small additional cost and time to future-proof their PCB designs. The first action is to swap generation-old technology with the latest wireless chips to ensure product longevity and material access.
Additionally, new MCUs and wireless chips are more power efficient. While we wait for next-generation battery technology, low power consumption increases the product's lifetime. It also enables some products to use sustainable power sources like vibration, thermal, and light.
We see the boundaries between consumer and professional product capabilities disappear. For example, the cloud and wireless connectivity in personal health and medical products enable remote fall detection, oxygen level alerts, and diabetes monitoring during the pandemic. A benefit is reduced stress and workload on our vital medical personnel.?
Cellular IoT adoption
Network operators increase support for and continue to roll out cellular IoT support worldwide. Cellular IoT technology enables a new generation of robust, standalone, wireless, battery-operated products. We now see long-range location services materialize in consumer and professional markets.
Prominent examples include agricultural monitoring and off-the-shelf container and shipment tracking. Pet and object trackers use Nordic's wireless connectivity SoC and SiPs to bypass typical range- and aggregator/router limitations.?
Small size with powerful features! Thingy:91 is the goto prototyping kit for cellular IoT.
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Finally, Nordic wireless technology enables all major Find and Find My networks. As these large eco-systems remove restrictions, we see growing third-party support and use.
Developer friendly focus
Nordic Semiconductor has taken several actions to help developers and customers succeed with their designs.?
The Nordic Partner Program makes it possible for customers to seek professional wireless design help when bringing new products to market. Typical pitfalls can be avoided early in the strategy and design process.?
In addition, we are meeting the new generation of embedded developer needs by making ourselves available in all channels and communities like the developer community (Nordic DevZone).?When it's possible, we will continue to meet developers for 1:1 hands-on training worldwide during the Nordic Tech Tour.
Finally, we rebuilt the core of our software development tools to provide a unified developer experience. With simplicity as a key driver, if you are developing Bluetooth LE, cloud or cellular IoT designs, or starting with e.g., the wireless protocols like Matter, you can create and develop your projects from a single developer platform.?
Session 2 - Matter adds smart to smart home
Kevin Po, Senior Product Manager @ Google and Chris LaPré, Head of Technology @ Connectivity Standards Alliance visited Anne and P?r from Nordic during CES.
Simplicity is also crucial in the new Matter standard. In a session with Kevin Po from Google and Chris LaPre from CSA, we looked at the maturity of the protocol that brings smart home simplicity to end-customers. The standard is in its final approval steps. Matter is a unifying protocol for the smart home, and with commitment from the world's largest companies, it bodes well for end customers.?
During CES, Nordic demonstrated how Leedarson, Google, and Assa Abloy products seamlessly work together, including the Nordic Thingy:53 developer kit.
Matter demo @ CES 2022
Session 3 - Bluetooth LE audio
Chuck Sabin @ Bluetooth SIG and Doug Breaker @ MDHearing Aid visited Anne and Vincent to discuss Bluetooth LE audio.
Finally, we covered the Bluetooth LE standard for exceptional audio experiences. Chuck Sabin of the Bluetooth SIG, covered the features of the new low power, high-quality audio Bluetooth LE standard, and some typical profiles. We can expect future support in everything from TVs to hearing aids once manufacturers start to roll out LE audio support. We will probably see the first smartphones with LE audio in 2022.
Doug Breaker, CMO at MDHearing Aid showcased one of the first products using LE audio and give people with hearing issues a much better experience going forward.
The new LE audio codec improves audio quality, and Vincent Hagen from Nordic demonstrated a much more energy efficient protocol with short latency, and the new broadcast- and multi-stream capabilities, at our booth.
LE Audio demo @ CES 2022
CES 2022 again delivered some glimpses of the future and quite a few new and innovative products that will be available soon.
For more 2022 discussions, check out the latest CEO interview here: https://www.eetasia.com/nordic-semiconductor-ceo-svenn-tore-larsen-discusses-his-outlook-for-2022/