IFA 2012, BERLIN, Germany - 31st August 2012 - CSR plc (LSE: CSR; NASDAQ: CSRE) entered the Smart Home arena this week at the IFA 2012 consumer electronics show with an extensive line-up of high-quality audio and wireless connectivity technologies, demonstrating how these solutions can be used to create the next generation of highly immersive wireless home audio entertainment systems, advanced remote controls and flexible home automation systems. In the company’s booth (Hall 1.2, Stand 142) and in private meeting rooms, CSR demonstrations offer a peek at the interconnected roles that home audio and entertainment systems, home environmental systems and home appliances will play with smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices in the emerging Smart Home market and the technologies that will be required to provide the more advanced control required of them.
“Powerful, high-quality audio with seamless Bluetooth® and Wi-Fi® wireless connectivity to digital media from an array of mobile devices and online services is an essential ingredient for creating highly immersive home entertainment experiences, and will be a central component of the Smart Home,” said Anthony Murray, Business Group SVP at CSR. “And of course consumers will want an app for controlling these entertainment systems, not to mention all the other home automation and environmental systems in the Smart Home, because that is what they have come to expect from their smartphones and tablets. This, in turn, will require the more sophisticated communications capabilities of Bluetooth Smart® technology.”
According to Murray, the CSR demonstrations at IFA highlight the benefits consumer home audio manufacturers can achieve by being able to obtain complete digital audio solutions from a single supplier along with the Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart and Wi-Fi technologies they need to control their products and integrate them into the Smart Home.
Sound bar demonstrations
Two private demonstrations of sound bars show how CSR technologies can be integrated to deliver highly immersive music experiences for consumer audio products. One combines the CSR MAP-X™ media application processor with the CSR8600™ wireless audio platform to create the heart of a fully functional, high-definition audio sound bar. The other shows WOW HD audio enhancement technology running on the CSR8670™ with the CSR aptX® audio codec and a CSR DDFA® power amplifier to provide a highly immersive audio experience, with cleaner, livelier audio quality, purer spatial information, advanced bass enhancement and an innovative centre control feature.
aptX® Low Latency debut
CSR is introducing aptX Low Latency technology, the best way to ensure that the sound matches the action when using Bluetooth streaming audio with video and gaming applications. CSR is a also presenting a number of public and private demonstrations showing how CSR aptX technology delivers vastly superior wireless audio streaming experience to a variety of consumer electronics products, from wireless speaker docks and wireless headphones to smartphones and tablets from a number of major brands, including Samsung, NAD, Denon, Motorola, Klipsch, Onkyo and HTC.
Bluetooth Smart automates home
CSR is also presenting what it believes is the first demonstration of an Apple® iOS device directly managing and controlling Smart Home environmental systems via low energy Bluetooth Smart connectivity, using the rich user interface of an iPad® to manipulate a graphical dimmer control to set lighting levels, watch the resulting power consumption effects on a graphical smart meter and display the current room temperature from a remote thermostat. Other Smart Home control demonstrations feature Bluetooth Smart remotes to control sound bars and remote monitoring over the Internet of a Wi-Fi-connected refrigerator in New Zealand.
CSR customers and industry analysts wishing to view the private demonstrations should visit the CSR booth (Hall 1.2, Stand 142) at the IFA show to obtain an invitation.
