Investor-backed InnoPhase IoT is getting ready to power through another year of product unveilings in the ever-expanding world of IoT that relies on Wi-Fi and sensors while also partnering with companies such as GreenWaves, Bosch, TDK InvenSense and more.
The 12-year-old fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, Calif., seems to want to fill every product gap an IoT device maker might want to pursue from audio headsets to sensor-to-cloud SoCs focused on energy efficiency.
For upcoming CES in Las Vegas, the 120-worker team is preparing to show off several product demonstrations, some that appeared in early form at Sensors Converge in June and Electronica in November. (The company will conduct demos at Venetian Suite 29-221 Jan. 7-10 by appointment. )
Applications supported by InnoPhase modules and SoCs run the gamut: smart home door locks and glass break sensors, smart building robotics and air quality sensing, smart retail shelf monitoring and point of sales terminals, industrial IoT asset tracking and vibration sensing, smart healthcare patient and asset tracking, pet and people geo-fencing and tracking. The company holds 120 patents and is working in agtech, drones, smart tools, wireless headsets and speakers and wearables.
Recently, Innophase IoT collaborated with Ingenic on an AI-enabled, battery-powered Wi-Fi camera to offer clear 4K video with extended battery life. Developers will be able to use the reference design for faster time to market for end products, according to Deepal Mehta, senior director of business development for Innophase IoT.
Partnering with GreenWaves Technologies and IDUN Audio, the company has developed high quality, lossless spatial audio for headsets offering extended battery life. Mehta said visitors to the Innophase IoT booth at CES will be demo a smart Spotify connection over a spatial headset design using Wi-Fi at low power.
Low-power Wi-Fi is expected to be a differentiator for headsets, according to research firm ABI. That’s because Wi-Fi is much longer range than Bluetooth typically in use (150 meters compared to 10 meters) and can connect directly to a cloud source. The Wi-Fi approach also allows multi-channel audio through multi-megabit per second throughput, Mehta explained. GreenWaves provides an ultra-low power GAP9 processor in the design.
“It’s a pretty new market trying to bring premium lossless to a headset,” Mehta told Fierce Electronics.
Also recently, Innophase IoT announced its Talara TWO Wi-Fi SoC has been integrated with TDK InvenSense’s ICU 30201 ultrasonic sensor, which is applicable to use smart home, enterprise and industrial applications. The integration is designed to provide direct connectivity to the cloud without the need for an external MCU, especially useful for video cameras, smart locks and access control systems.
Innophase IoT has has even developed a low power sensor-to-cloud developer kit relying on the Bosch Sensortec BME688 environmental sensor for detecting gas, temperature and humidity.
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