November 8, 2016 – Qorvo, a provider of RF solutions that connect the world, is helping to advance smart home networking with a radio chip and software that expands the ability of consumers to control their homes with spoken commands. The GP712 radio chip supports multiple communication protocols in a single-chip design suited to connected-home applications. It was introduced earlier this year by GreenPeak Technologies - now Qorvo's Low Power Wireless business - and is now in production. When integrated into Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs), the GP712 enables the VPA to respond to voice commands and communicate directly with millions of smart-home devices that use ZigBee® and Thread protocols.
Previously, a separate gateway was required to connect the VPA speaker with the ZigBee and Thread sentrollers. VPA-enabled wireless speakers - such as Amazon Echo and Google Home - have microphones that link consumers directly to cloud services using voice commands. According to ABI Research, more than 120 million voice recognition-enabled devices are forecast to ship annually by 2021*. Live demonstrations of smart home applications, as well as other solutions from Qorvo, will be featured at the company's booth during Electronica in Munich, Nov. 8-11, 2016, Hall A3 Booth #142.
