Nordic Semiconductor announces the release of the nRFready µBlue Smart Remote – the world’s first complete reference design for Bluetooth Smart (as Bluetooth low energy will now be marketed to consumers) advanced navigation remote controls. The reference design provides an ideal solution for Bluetooth Smart Ready Connected TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) by delivering advanced navigation features such as multi-touch, motion control, and a QWERTY keyboard, while offering up to one year of battery operating life.
Unlike other RF technologies relevant to remote controls – such as ZigBee Remote (RF4CE) and proprietary 2.4GHz RF – Bluetooth Smart enables connected TV manufacturers to use a single Wi-Fi / Bluetooth v4.0 combo IC for all connectivity instead of having to add a dedicated radio to handle the remote. This provides both significant cost and space savings.
The nRFready µBlue Smart Remote is based on Nordic’s market leading µBlue nRF8001 Bluetooth low energy Connectivity IC combined with an ultra-low power flash LPC1100 series ARM® Cortex-M0 microcontroller from NXP Semiconductors. It provides customers with a complete and proven combined hardware-software reference design that significantly cuts down development time, and cost.
The reference design features a multi-touch enabled TouchPad™ from Synaptics, a miniaturized QWERTY keyboard, a six-axis motion sensing solution from Invensense, an ultra-low power accelerometer from ST Microelectronics, and an IR transmitter for legacy equipment support. Based on the new Human Interface Device (HID), the remote control offers seamless interoperability with existing and future Bluetooth Smart Ready hubs including TVs, STBs, smartphones, PCs, and computer tablets.
The Nordic nRFready µBlue Smart Remote reference design (nRF6923) is available now and is provided as an upgrade kit (plug-in module) for existing customers of Nordic's proprietary nRFready 2.4GHz RF Smart Remote (nRF6920) reference design.
