GainSpan iPhone App Demos Home Energy Usage Control

LOS GATOS, CA /PRNewswire/ -- GainSpan, a leader in low power Wi-Fi semiconductor solutions for sensing applications, has partnered with Our Home Spaces, a provider of consumer-centric energy management solutions for homeowners, to develop iPhone applications that allow consumers to monitor and control home temperature, water heaters, HVAC systems, and lighting from their iPhones or iPod touch. GainSpan will be demonstrating one of these applications next week at Interop Expo, Las Vegas, May 17–21, in the IPSO Alliance booth, number 2513. The iPhone application connects to a battery-operated temperature and light sensor device using Wi-Fi so that air temperature and light detected by the sensor, as well as battery voltage, can be monitored via the iPhone. The demonstration shows how any Wi-Fi equipped device or appliance can be monitored and controlled remotely from the iPhone.

"The new iPhone application shows the tremendous value of Wi-Fi based sensor applications for the remote control of energy usage," said Bernard Aboussouan, vice president of marketing, GainSpan. "Unlike other wireless technologies, low power Wi-Fi technology leverages the huge installed base of Wi-Fi in PDAs, smart phones, laptops and access points, making it ideal for residential and commercial building applications."

"Being able to monitor and control a field of sensors distributed throughout a home or other facility via an iPhone as demonstrated by GainSpan shows the potential available to Wi-Fi users in controlling their energy consumption," said Janet Peterson, CEO, Our Home Spaces. "Consumers are given direct access to point of use information and can adjust their usage habits to conserve energy and reduce their energy costs from anywhere via their Wi-Fi-enabled phones or other Wi-Fi devices."

The temperature and light sensor used in this application is powered by GainSpan's GS1010 Wi-Fi system-on-chip that is the lowest power-consuming and most highly integrated Wi-Fi chip solution in the industry. GainSpan's low power innovation applied to Wi-Fi has enabled the creation of many new products for temperature monitoring, security and access control, and asset and people tracking.

The GainSpan iPhone application is expected to be available in Apple's iPhone App Store beginning mid-May.

About GainSpan
GainSpan is a leader in ultra low power Wi-Fi chip solutions and a spinoff of Intel. GainSpan provides the industry's lowest power consuming Wi-Fi single chip solution for battery-powered or energy-harvesting-based sensor devices and other embedded systems. Devices using GainSpan chips can run for up to 10 years on a single AA battery. GainSpan enables its customers to leverage the very large installed base of Wi-Fi access points and devices and create new products for residential, commercial, and industrial applications, while reducing the overall operation and installation costs of sensor networks.

About Our Home Spaces
Our Home Spaces provides technology, services and products that empower the consumer, through information and understanding, about their energy consumption at its point of use. We believe that an informed consumer will adjust their use and habits to minimize energy use and costs and hence reduce their carbon footprint. Our Home Spaces' goal is to aid the State of California in meeting their objective of cutting the energy consumption of 13,000,000 homes in California by 50 percent by 2020 by providing energy awareness tools to the consumer.