Bluetooth LE remote control delivers voice-activated solution for Android TV-based media streaming devices

SMK remote

The SMK BTRC01 BLE Remote Control reference design employs Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC to provide processing power and low latency Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Tokyo, Japan-based, SMK Corporation, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the wireless connectivity and processing power for its ‘BTRC01 BLE Remote Control’ reference design.

The remote control refence design is suitable for manufacturers of media streaming devices including smart TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) based on the Android TV operating system. The BTRC01 BLE Remote Control provides both touch key and voice control operation and is available in black, blue, or red color profiles. Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC provides both the computational power to manage the remote control’s voice operation as well as the low latency Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity between the remote control and the Android TV-compatible device
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Battery life was an essential factor in our choice of wireless chip, and was a key reason for selecting Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC
Ryohei Komatsu, SMK
The remote control is powered by two AAA batteries, offering extended battery life in regular operation, thanks in part to the low power characteristics of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52832 has been engineered to minimize power consumption with features such as the 2.4GHz radio’s 5.5mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully-automatic power management system that reduces power consumption by up to 80 percent compared with Nordic’s nRF51 Series SoCs.

Nordic’s nRF52832 multiprotocol SoC combines an Arm processor with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5, ANT™, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) featuring -96-dB RX sensitivity. The nRF52832 is supplied with Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certifed RF software protocol stack for building advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice features Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth LE roles, supports up to twenty connections, and enables concurrent role operation.

“Battery life was an essential factor in our choice of wireless chip, and was a key reason for selecting Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC,” says Ryohei Komatsu, Sales Coordination Department, SCI Division, SMK. “In addition to which the available technical information and high level support from Nordic’s engineers that helped us during development was crucial.”