LG, Toshiba Sign On for ZigBee Remotes
The ZigBee Alliance announced that LG Electronics and Toshiba have joined the ZigBee RF4CE Steering Committee focused on driving ZigBee RF4CE standardized solutions throughout the consumer electronics industry.
The ZigBee Alliance announced that LG Electronics and Toshiba have joined the ZigBee RF4CE Steering Committee focused on driving ZigBee RF4CE standardized solutions throughout the consumer electronics industry. LG and Toshiba join Philips, Freescale Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Samsung and Sony on the Steering Committee.
First announced in March 2009, ZigBee RF4CE is a standardized specification for radio-frequency communications that enables faster, more reliable, and more flexible devices to operate from larger distances. It removes the line-of-sight and field-of-vision barriers in today’s IR remotes. With two-way communication, ZigBee RF4CE opens the door to a new set of AV capabilities. It is designed for a wide range of consumer electronic products, including home entertainment devices.
“We view ZigBee RF4CE as an industry-changing solution that dramatically improves upon the old infrared remote control user experience that is very limited in coverage, direction and data reliability,” said Ho Jun Nam, principle research engineer at LG Electronics, in a statement. “As new functionalities are being added to TV sets every day, we believe that ZigBee RF4CE will enable us to design low power interface devices that offer bi-directional communications, with agile response times and flexible human interface design to accommodate these new functionalities.”
ZigBee Remote Control, made publicly available in December 2009, is the first ZigBee RF4CE-based solution for consumer electronics. More applications for the consumer world are in development, according to the group.
“Consumers are constantly looking for new product features in their electronic devices that will take their user experience to the next level,” said Shigenori Tokumitsu, technology executive for the Visual Products Company at Toshiba, in a statement. “Today, Toshiba uses ZigBee RF4CE-based remotes for selected televisions in certain markets. We believe ZigBee RF4CE is a critical building block upon which we can develop new, reliable and interactive solutions that will continue to excite consumers in the future.”
The ZigBee RF4CE specification operates in the 2.4GHz unlicensed frequency band and enables worldwide operation, low power consumption, and rapid response time. It allows omni-directional and reliable two-way wireless communication, channel agility for enhanced co-existence with other 2.4GHz wireless technologies, and secure setup and configuration. For more details, visit www.zigbee.org/rf4ce.
