A new reference design from semiconductor and telecoms equipment company Qualcomm aims to help smart device manufacturers bring new products to market.
Qualcomm has unveiled its new Mesh Networking Platform to boost IoT device usage in the home at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan.
The company said that the Mesh Networking Platform will deliver consistent connectivity to smart devices in every corner of the home, as well as feature voice control capabilities, centralized management and security, and a range of mesh system features essential for carrier-grade networks.
The Qualcomm Mesh Networking Platform is based upon the Qualcomm IPQ40x8/9 network system-on-a-chip, which is used in nearly every mesh networking product available today.
It comes with the company’s Wi-Fi Self-Organizing (SON) feature suite, designed to ensure widespread Wi-Fi coverage, easy set-up, automatic management and traffic optimisation.
There are also carrier-grade features to allow carriers to enhance their broadband services with Wi-Fi SON, making application programming interfaces (APIs) available for easier porting of SON on to other silicon platforms. This will also include cloud-based diagnostics to enable remote monitoring, diagnostics and analytics for troubleshooting.
Finally, the platform will boast integrated voice capabilities, to allow consumers to control and interact with devices on their network using their voice. The platform supports built-in microphone array and speaker, voice recognition software, and supports APIs to the most popular cloud-based assistant applications.
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Backhaul options
There is a variety of backhaul options that can be used to maximise the performance of mesh networks, including 802.11ac, 802.11ad, 802.11ax, or Powerline technologies. Qualcomm is also offering a reference design so that manufacturers can create their own IoT mesh networking products.
“Qualcomm Technologies helped create a new category of mesh networks that are transforming in-home connectivity,” said Gopi Sirineni, vice president of product management at the company.
“New capabilities like voice assistance and IoT radio integration will not only transform consumer experiences at home but along with carrier-grade feature enhancements, make it easier for our customers to adopt and deploy mesh systems aligned to how people want their networks to perform.”
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