Qualcomm and Samsung in new IoT chip product announcements

This has been a busy couple of weeks in terms of Internet of Things technology announcements. In particular, two titans from the mobile space, Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm are attempting to catch up with Intel with processors aimed at all manufacturers of ‘things’. Qualcomm announces two new products for its $1 billion IoT segment Qualcomm are making a very strong push in its “Internet of Everything” as its smartphone technology portfolio which is no longer benefiting from growth rates it was previously accustomed … Read more…

Will the promise of the Smart Home finally be realised as standards converge?

We have already seen how the connected home market is overwhelmed by a morass of incompatible and competing standards, and products made by different manufacturers are unlikely to work together unless they use high-level APIs such as Google’s “Works with Nest”. In the dumb home, interoperability was taken for granted. An incandescent bulb would work with any switch and thermostats were readily interchangeable. The addition of complex app & web based interfaces, the foundation of ‘smart’ systems has created a multitude … Read more…

First chips supporting Apple HomeKit start shipping

Although Apple announced Homekit, its home automation solution for iOS devices last June, its launch is not expected until early 2015. However yesterday Forbes reported that Broadcom and Texas Instruments have started shipping Homekit-enabled WiFi chips to their customers. While this is clearly too late for products aimed for the 2014 holiday season, it means that we should start seeing first products early 2015. Of course, the question remains whether people will buy into an Apple walled garden view of home automation, … Read more…

Qualcomm set to acquire CSR

Today Qualcomm announced its planned purchase of CSR, formerly Cambridge Silicon radio. Key observation is that Qualcomm is making a dual-technology strategy for personal area and local area networking, namely Bluetooth and WiFi, the latter building on its previous Atheros acquisition. This surely must raise questions for the current home-automation protocols such as Zigbee and Z-Wave, who cannot compete for scale of deployment with Bluetooth and WiFi, which are implemented in practically every Smartphone and Tablet sold. As Qualcomm buys CSR, … Read more…