UEI expands its wireless connectivity solutions with enhanced security, sustainability, scalability
Las Vegas, United States – Universal Electronics Inc.,, a global provider in wireless universal control solutions for home entertainment and smart home devices, has unveiled its extended family of QuickSet-certified connectivity solutions at CES 2023. As a global provider in entertainment and smart home control technologies, UEI is committed to helping its customers deliver more secure, sustainable, and scalable wireless control solutions for an ever-growing variety of home applications.
Single and multi-radio low power silicon for a more secure connected world
For several years, UEI has been providing its Fortune 500 customers with high-performance, voice-optimised, and energy-efficient Bluetooth LE and Zigbee/rf4CE (802.15.4) connectivity solutions. As of 2022, the company has shipped over 200 million systems on chips (SOCs) of its current generation silicon to many of the TV brands, pay TV operators and air conditioning OEM customers. As many of these SOCs are cloud-connected for a variety of Internet of Things applications, the company has enhanced its end-to-end system security across all its products and upgraded its SOCs with secure boot, and secured OTA features. In addition, its single-radio UE961/UE962 and multi-radio UE871 solutions now support the latest Bluetooth LE 5.3.
Extreme low power silicon with harvesting capability for a more sustainable connected world
In 2022, the company announced its new sustainability-centric connectivity solutions and is proud to announce it has shipped its first 15 million units. The strength of this new Bluetooth LE line-up comes from its low-power analog and radio design and its processing capabilities. In addition, its new silicon features integrated energy harvesting and power management capabilities. Its UE961 silicon variant delivers up to 10x longer battery life and 2.5x more processing power than existing Bluetooth LE silicon and is the solution in extreme low power. In addition, its UE962 can harvest energy from multiple external sources such as indoor light and radio frequency signals in the home and supports a wide range of energy storage and charging options via its configurable, ultra-efficient power management unit (PMU). The silicon is designed to help customers reduce single-use battery waste and significantly limit the product’s carbon footprint.
Local area network silicon and modules for scalable Internet of Things applications
For 2023, UEI’s QuickSet Widgets – which provide fully managed Internet of Things (IoT) capability to non-connected electronic devices for fast time-to-market and enable the digital transformation of end-user interaction – will now expand to include native support of Matter across the QuickSet Widget family with Virtual Agent-assisted easy onboarding. This will enable products powered by the QuickSet widget including the UEI TIDE family of smart thermostats to be Matter-capable.
In addition to UE61S and UE61V, an entry-level bare metal variant, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth LE-equipped UE51 module will be introduced and expected to ship in 2023. Powered by QuickSet cloud, the QuickSet widget family of wireless connectivity solutions provides benefits for device and IoT platform interoperability, easy onboarding, device management, mobile SDK support, UEI virtual agent support and extensive connectivity options including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Universal IR, as well as wired protocols, with potential to extend to Zigbee devices via the UE878 module. QuickSet Widgets have been adopted by major air conditioning brands which are expected to launch in 2023, providing the benefit of enhanced interoperability through Matter capabilities and backward compatibility with billions of legacy connected and non-connected devices currently installed in the field.
“As the smart home expands, and interoperability between different devices, ecosystems and protocols continues to be a challenge, we have seen strong interest in our QuickSet services,” says Arsham Hatambeiki, SVP of product and technology at UEI. “Recognised as the most effective solution for OEMs to deliver interoperability and Smart Home services, we expect our QuickSet-certified silicon chips and modules will grow and expand as we offer new features and capabilities.”
Visit us at CES 2023 Booth #52014 at the Venetian Expo Hall to learn more about UEI’s expanded lineup of wireless silicon solutions at CES. Schedule here.
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