We live in an increasingly interconnected world, and as the Internet of Things approaches a tipping point, the world is affected by more and more complex technologies. The digitization and networking of more and more “things” are changing every aspect of our lives, beyond smart factories, offices, cars, etc., and redefining the home experience.
As more and more consumers want to take advantage of the comfort, energy efficiency and safety advantages of smart home and building technology, the demand for smart home devices and applications is experiencing dynamic growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of smart home technology. During the various stages of the lockdown, many private homes were turned into offices, schools, recreation centers, fitness rooms, and even medical centers. This shift in demand has also promoted disruptive changes in the scope, functionality, and performance of smart home applications and devices that are currently in demand. Today’s smart home is much more than a refrigerator that reorders milk or a coffee machine that recognizes users and understands their preferences.By 2026, ABI studies1 predict “The smart home market will reach 317 billion U.S. dollars, a 5% increase from the previous forecast for COVID-19.”
Houses that can be “heared”, “seen” and “smelt”-science fiction or reality?
And this smart home trend will continue to move forward. According to United Nations projections, by 2050, seven out of ten people will live in cities. This will promote the development of megacities with high-rise buildings, large apartment buildings and large office/public buildings. Digitization will play a decisive role in all these buildings. According to the European Association of Telecommunications Network Operators, by 2025, there will be approximately 154 million active IoT connections in smart buildings. This is just Europe!
What makes the home smart?
By equipping everyday “things” such as heaters, ventilators, air conditioners, elevators and lights with powerful electronic devices, the home becomes smart. Microelectronics technology enables all these “things” to “see”, “hear” and “understand” the surrounding environment. They can then process information autonomously, make decisions, and initiate chains of action. Several functional blocks are needed to build this kind of intelligence into a smart home system:
- sensor Mark the starting point of any IoT system as they capture environmental information and convert it into digital data.
- Microcontroller It is the nerve center of IoT devices, processing these data and generating control signals.
- Actuator Start things by converting control signals into actions.
- Connectivity It is the heartbeat of the Internet of Things, connecting all these “things” to each other and to the cloud.
- Security solution For devices, networks, and data, by protecting data transmission and ensuring the integrity of connected devices and networks, building vital consumer trust in the digital world.
In short, the seamless and safe interaction between all these functional blocks makes the home smart.
But it was not all smooth sailing…
The increase in the number of connected devices in the home makes the network more congested. Users often have to face service interruptions or wireless connection issues between different smart home devices. In addition, Wi-Fi devices usually consume a lot of power. Some houses are also prone to blind spots, and coverage may fluctuate or deteriorate from room to room. At the same time, the popular 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio frequency spectrum has become more and more crowded, causing performance issues. As IoT edge devices become attractive targets for home hackers, many users are increasingly concerned about the security of their homes and private data.
In order to win the trust of users and give full play to the potential of smart home technology, smart home equipment and appliance manufacturers need semiconductor solutions to solve all these connectivity, congestion and security issues.
Provide seamless and reliable connections for smart homes
In an interconnected experience home, excellent reception quality and fast and stable connections between IoT devices, the cloud, and the network are essential—anytime and anywhere. Various connectivity standards are constantly evolving to support seamless communication for different use cases. The most popular are Wi-Fi for wireless local area networks (WLAN), Bluetooth® for content streaming, and Bluetooth® low energy (BLE) technology for ultra-low power connections.
Of particular interest here are developments such as Wi-Fi 6. This latest generation of Wi-Fi is built to improve reliability and performance, even in high device density environments. Unlike previous generations of Wi-Fi that focused on peak device speeds, Wi-Fi 6 in addition to peak speeds also includes improvements in network congestion, network efficiency, device battery life, latency, and range. This makes it an ideal choice for online gaming devices with virtual reality capabilities, exercise devices for real-time streaming exercises, connected kitchen gadgets, and other IoT devices that usually occupy the home network environment.
Answer: A new combination series that supports the latest standards
Semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies AG meets the market’s demand for safe and reliable wireless connections for homes with its new AIROC™ portfolio. Taking advantage of Wi-Fi 6/6E and Bluetooth® 5.2, these combined solutions solve the challenges of congested 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels by opening up the 6 GHz spectrum. They also bring extraordinary audio and video quality to media applications, and provide powerful remote connections for IoT applications to expand coverage. In contrast, AIROC™ doubled the wireless coverage of Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4, thus making a valuable contribution to eliminating blind spots and receiving problems. Equally impressive is that AIROC™ has expanded the coverage of typical Wi-Fi 6/6E solutions by more than 40%.
Infineon’s AIROC™ Wi-Fi 6/6E solution is also equipped with the latest Bluetooth® 5.2 technology, which enables high-quality audio through LC3 and supports new BLE audio use cases, such as audio sharing and audio broadcasting. The unique low-power Bluetooth® LE wake-up mode allows the host CPU to save power while the Bluetooth® core autonomously “listens” for incoming connection requests. Advanced wireless technology innovations have been added to improve the overall robustness of BT/BLE range, reduce interference and delay, while also reducing power consumption by 20%. This is beyond the BT5.2 specification. Infineon’s unique Smart Coex™ maximizes Wi-Fi throughput when used in conjunction with Bluetooth®, making it ideal for demanding multimedia use cases. Last but not least, AIROC™ has multiple layers of security features, such as secure boot, firmware authentication and encryption, and lifecycle management. This higher level of security for IoT applications in smart homes will greatly help establish consumers’ much-needed trust in the safety and integrity of their devices and data.
In order to accelerate the deployment of Wi-Fi 6/6E and Bluetooth® 5.2 for smart home development, reduce test costs and support product certification, Infineon and its module partners have collaborated to build and provide integrated Wi-Fi 6/6E solutions.
The combination of AIROC™ Wi-Fi 6/6E and Bluetooth® 5.2 is currently providing samples to some customers.
More information is available at www.cypress.com/products/cyw5557x and www.cypress.com/products/automotive-wireless.
