Nordic Semiconductor unveils latest smart home, wireless audio and location services IoT solutions at CES 2022

The first physical CES in two years provides the perfect opportunity for Nordic Semiconductor to reconnect with existing customers and all those interested in the latest low power wireless and Internet of Things (IoT) advances. Nordic plans a range of exciting and informative demonstrations at the giant tech event including how Matter will accelerate the mainstream adoption of the smart home, how LE Audio will usher in the next generation of wireless audio and how location services will revolutionize asset tracking. The demonstrations will take place each day of CES on Nordic’s booth (#52243) at the Venetian Expo (formerly Sands). The world’s leading consumer electronics exhibition, CES is organized by the U.S.-based Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and will be held in Las Vegas, NV, from January 5 to 8, 2022.

Major IoT technology demonstrations

Matter is the result of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA, formerly the Zigbee Alliance) efforts to create a unified application layer for smart home applications. The initiative has seen major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon and Google collaborate such that wireless device makers can develop solutions that work seamlessly with virtual assistant technologies, smart home hubs and smart speakers from these major manufacturers. Nordic has been a key contributor to the Matter specification and at CES, the company will show how its proven nRF52 and nRF53 Series Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) support Matter’s adoption for smart home products. The booth will host a demonstration including Smart Hub from Google, and products from Yale, Eve and Leedarson. The demonstration will also include the Nordic Thingy:53, an nRF5340 SoC-powered multisensor prototyping platform, operating as a temperature sensor.

The return of a physical CES gives Nordic a golden opportunity to reconnect face-to-face with customers and other interested people

Geir Langeland, Nordic Semiconductor

LE Audio is the next generation of Bluetooth wireless streaming. At its heart is a new codec called Low Complexity Communication Codec (or LC3) which supports higher quality, lower power wireless streaming compared with existing Classic Bluetooth audio solutions. LE Audio introduces True Wireless Stereo (TWS), enhanced hearing aid support and broadcast audio – features which will broaden the market for wireless audio. Nordic has been developing LE Audio for several years and its nRF5340, a dual Arm® Cortex®-M33 core advanced wireless SoC, is the perfect foundation for the technology. At CES, Nordic will demonstrate LE Audio applications using its new audio DK which is based on the nRF5340 and a Cirrus Logic® TWS ADC/DAC.

The third major tech demonstration at CES will combine the Nordic Thingy:91 and the company’s nRF Cloud Location Services. Thingy:91 is built around the nRF9160 Low power SiP with integrated LTE-M/NB-IoT modem and GNSS and is the ideal platform for developing proof-of-concept cellular IoT asset tracking solutions. It works out-of-the-box with nRF Cloud Location Services. nRF Cloud Location Services support customer applications that need fast and power-efficient location details. The services include single- and multi-cell, and Assisted- and Predictive-GPS location features allowing customers to trade-off asset tracker power consumption against location precision. The demonstration will show several Thingy:91s tracked around the world using the various features of nRF Cloud Location Services to illustrate the trade-off between power consumption and location accuracy. In addition to the main demonstrations, there will be many other short range wireless and cellular IoT demonstrations.

Live panel discussions about the hot topics

Nordic will also host a live discussion panel on each day of the show. There will be live panels about the importance of Matter, LE Audio, and location services, plus a fourth session addressing how the post-pandemic landscape looks for the semiconductor industry. The sessions will include guests from the Bluetooth SIG, the CSA, Google and major product manufacturers:

“This is perhaps one of the most important CES events ever,” says Geir Langeland, EVP Sales & Marketing with Nordic Semiconductor. “Beyond the human cost, the pandemic has proved extremely challenging for the electronics industry, particularly in terms of chip supply, but it has also accelerated wireless technology in many areas as we’ve turned to the IoT to help us get back to a ‘new normal’.

“The return of a physical CES gives Nordic a golden opportunity to reconnect face-to-face with customers and other interested people and we plan to use that opportunity to show them how fast things have moved in not only areas such as the smart home, wireless audio and asset tracking but also health care, education, wearables, industrial automation and more.”

International CES boasts five decades of success. At the pre-pandemic 2020 event there were over 20,000 product debuts, and 4,400 exhibiting companies welcomed over 170,000 attendees across more than 270,000m2 of exhibit space.