Powercast to introduce sensing technology
Summary
Manufacturers also have the option to integrate the necessary electronics to convert their household products into Ubiquity™ RF transmitters for a bill-of-materials cost of just $5, using a licensable reference design. “Smart home automation sensors exist, but are limited by wires and disposable batteries,” said Charles Greene, Ph.D., COO and CTO of Powercast. Thread utilises the IEEE 802.15.4 mesh network, enabling robust, efficient, low-power communication between devices. Internal testing of this Powercast-designed, Matter-compliant low-power window sensor has shown that it can charge up to 25 feet away from the transmitter using the Nordic nRF52840 Thread-compliant microcontroller. The SoC combines a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) and 1MB Flash memory and 256kB RAM, plus a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio that supports Bluetooth 5, ANT, Thread, Matter, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software.”