You could be forgiven for wondering why I should push 5G when it might seem marketing is still ahead of deployment. While we may not all have it today, GlobeNewswire (September 22, 2021 12:30 ET) estimates there will be 700 million 5G connections across the world by the end of this year. That’s pretty rapid growth already, though still… Read More
Ultra-Wide Band Finds New Relevance
Do you use Tile or other Bluetooth tracking devices? If so, you know that such devices, attached to your car keys or wallet, created a small stir. A way to track down something you can’t find. Very neat but hardly revolutionary. One of those consumer tchotchkes as likely to be handed out as trade-show swag as purchased.
So why did Apple… Read More
Low Power Positioning for Logistics – Ultimate Tracking
When thinking about positioning you probably first think of navigation. The device in your car that helps get from where you are to where you want to be. Or navigating while hiking in the backcountry. But those applications are not the where the big unit growth will come. The biggest demand will be in asset tracking, expected to reach… Read More
Spot-On Dead Reckoning for Indoor Autonomous Robots
One meaning of the word “reckoning” says it is the action or process of calculating or estimating something. But dead reckoning? What does that mean? Believe it or not, we have all deployed dead reckoning to varying degrees of success on different occasions. As an example, when driving on a multi-lane winding highway and direct … Read More
IP and Software Speeds up TWS Earbud SoC Development
The global market for earphones and headphones in 2020 is estimated to have been $34B and is expanding at a compound rate of over 20% per year. Of this almost 50% is said to be earphones which are shifting rapidly to True Wireless Stereo (TWS). We have seen the sales of TWS devices grow from 1M units is 2016 to 109M units in 2019, though … Read More
Expanding Role of Sensors Drives Sensor Fusion
It is long past the time when general purpose processors could meet the needs of sensor fusion. Sensor fusion performs operations to process and integrate raw sensor data so that downstream processing is simplified and is performed at a higher level. When done properly it offers several other significant benefits such as lower… Read More
Sensor Fusion Brings Earbuds into the Modern Age
Ten years ago, earbuds might have seemed like a mundane product area with little room for exciting developments. Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) has coincided with an avalanche of innovations that have moved earbuds from a simple transducer for creating sound into being a sophisticated device capable of accepting user commands … Read More
Sensor Fusion in Hearables. A powerful complement
I must admit I’m impressed with how CEVA is pulling together foundational solutions for advanced consumer electronics. This through their own technologies (DSP, audio, vision, neural nets) and a rapid pace of partnerships, investments and acquisitions. Off the top of my head, I remember recent announcements on Immervision… Read More
Low Energy Intelligence at the Extreme Edge
Intelligence at the edge is a hot topic these days. Not having to go all the way to the cloud to recognize objects, faces, speech and so on. But I find promoters can be rather fuzzy about what they mean by “the edge”. For many, intelligence at the edge means intelligence closer to the edge than the cloud. In a gateway for example. Not actually… Read More
Combo Wireless. I Want it All, I Want it Now
When we think of wireless it is natural to wonder “which one – cellular, Wi-Fi, BLE?” Our phones support everything but those are pricey devices. What if we wanted the same combo wireless option in a low-cost IoT device, maybe something that only need to send a small amount of data periodically? Logistics applications are a good example.… Read More