CSR Releases Comprehensive Solution For Bluetooth® Smart Keyboards, Mice And Remote Controls

2012 International CES – CSR plc (LSE: CSR; NASDAQ: CSRE) today set out to revolutionise the human interface device (HID) industry with a comprehensive suite of solutions for OEMs to create a new generation of wireless mice, keyboards, remote controls and other Bluetooth® Smart devices that can operate on a single set of batteries for the life of the product. Available now, the CSR range of semiconductors, reference designs and software development kits (SDK) enable the development of Bluetooth Smart Ready PCs, tablets and mobile handsets for use with Smart devices, allowing OEMs to more quickly and easily bring their new products to market, in order to capitalise on the new opportunities this technology offers.

“The Bluetooth Smart logo is a clear statement to consumers that they can expect market leading battery life,” said Paul Williamson, Product Marketing Manager at CSR. “CSR welcomes the Bluetooth SIG adoption of the Bluetooth low energy standard for the future of HID devices. We are pleased to introduce Bluetooth SIG qualified example designs for our customers on day-one of this new standard to help them deliver compelling products to market quickly.”

Remotes provide a good example of some of the exciting possibilities of Bluetooth low energy HID products. Bluetooth low energy remotes overcome the line-of-sight issues traditionally associated with IR remotes, and have faster response times and better battery life. The wide interoperability of the Bluetooth low energy standard will also raise the possibility of “smart remotes”; one remote for multiple subsequent or concurrent television sets and for other devices in the home. Mobile and tablet smart remote apps will also be able to easily deliver advanced features to the consumer such as on-device programme guides and gesture control.

CSR provides a full suite of Bluetooth Smart solutions for HID devices including CSR’s dual-mode platforms; CSR8510TM for PCs and CSR8810TM for tablets. Also available are CSR1000TM, CSR’s single-mode platform for simple peripherals, and CSR1001TM the only Bluetooth Smart accessory chip to provide a full single chip solution for advanced keyboards and remotes with 32 I/O lines. CSR also offers a comprehensive μEnergy® SDK for Bluetooth Smart HID development.

Bluetooth Smart technology enables consumers to buy mice with a realistic five-year battery life and keyboard batteries that are designed to last ten years, based on typical usage. CSR has developed several complete Bluetooth Smart HID reference designs to further enable quick, easy, low-cost product development. These designs include integrated functionality such as key matrix scanning and quadrature inputs, and allows for two-layered PCB designs, enabled by our QFN package resulting in lower cost and complexity.

The HID over the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) specification that has been adopted by the Bluetooth SIG enables the significant benefits of Bluetooth low energy to be applied to HID devices:

• More responsive – key press latency as low as 7.5mS
• Always connected – no delay in response to the first key press unlike legacy solutions
• Unlimited connectivity - Compatible with both Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready host devices as part of the Bluetooth 4.0 specification

CSR μEnergy silicon achieves this responsive performance providing a complete single-chip keyboard with an average connected current less than 15μA. End products based on CSR’s example designs will be on display at CES in January 2012.

CSR’s complete Bluetooth low energy development package for PCs, peripherals and remote controls is in mass production and available to customers today.

Visit the CSR booth at CES 2012 (South Hall Upper #30337) to see a demonstration of consumer products powered by CSR.

1 2 3 Next › Last »