Silicon Labs Category - Page 7 of 8 - CNX Software

June 2, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Sonoff SNZB Zigbee Sensors and Switches Launched for under $10

ITEAD had started to expand from WiFi and RF433 capable Sonoff home automation devices into Zigbee smart home solutions in recent months with the launch of products such as Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway and a TI CC2531 based Zigbee USB dongle preloaded with firmware compatible with Zigbee2MQTT. But so far, they had only one Zigbee node, namely Sonoff BASICZBR3 Zigbee power switch. More options are now available with the launch of four Sonoff SNZB Zigbee sensors and switches working with the company’s ZBBridge. Key features of the four new Zigbee sensors & switches: SNZB-01 Zigbee wireless switch Touch button with single, double press and long press support Battery – 3V (CR2450) Dimension – 43x43x16mm SNZB-02 Zigbee temperature & humidity sensor Unnamed temperature and humidity sensor Battery – 3V (CR2450) Dimension – 43x43x14mm SNZB-03 Zigbee motion sensor Built-in PIR sensor with 6m range and 110°viewing angle. Battery – 3V […]

April 27, 2020April 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

$9 Ebyte E180-ZG120B-TB Zigbee 3.0 Evaluation Board Features Silicon Labs EFR32MG1B Zigbee/Thread SoC

Ebyte E180-ZG120B-TB is a Zigbee 3.0 evaluation/development board based on the company’s E180-ZG120B module itself powered by Silicon Labs EFR32MG1B Series 1 Zigbee/Thread Arm Cortex-M4 SoC. Ebyte E180-ZG120B-TB specifications: Zigbee Module – Ebyte E180-ZG120B powered by Silabs EFR32MG1B Arm Cortex-M4 @ 40 MHz with 256 KB flash, 32KB SRAM; IPEX antenna connector; dimensions: 18 x 11.5mm Connectivity 2.4GHz Zigbee 3.0 & Thread Tx Power: 18 to 20dBm Range up to 1.3 km USB – 1x Micro USB port for power and programming via CP2102G serial chip Expansion 2x 14-pin headers plus 9-pin header giving access to module I/Os including GPIO, UART, PWM, ADC, TouchLink, Wake, RESET, DBG, 3.3V, and GND 6-pin header for power, 1x UART for CP2102G, 1x UART for module; Fitted with 3 jumpers by default to connect both Tx/Rx, as well as 3.3V power pins. Removing the jumper should allow you to connect directly to the module, […]

January 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Silicon Labs BG22 Secure Bluetooth 5.2 SoC Promises 10-Year Coin-Cell Battery Life

Yesterday, we wrote about the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard which promises smaller Bluetooth audio devices, or longer battery life, as well as support for multi-stream and broadcast audio. But there has been some other Bluetooth developments with the release of Bluetooth 5.2 specification on December 31st, and the announcement of the first Bluetooth 5.2 SoC courtesy of Silicon Labs. Bluetooth 5.2 Main Changes Bluetooth 5.2 builds upon Bluetooth 5.1 with the following key changes: Enhanced Attribute Protocol (EATT) – Improved version of the Attribute Protocol (ATT), which supports concurrent transactions, allows the interleaving of L2CAP packets relating to ATT packets from different applications and allows the ATT Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) to be changed during a connection. This can reduce latency and improves the responsiveness of Bluetooth LE applications. LE Power Control – Devices can dynamically optimize the transmission power used in communication between connected devices with BLE receivers […]

December 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Z-Wave Open Standard to Enable Third-Party Z-Wave Silicon and Stack Suppliers

Roughly one year ago, Silicon Labs released a publicly available Z-Wave SDK and a Raspberry Pi 3 Image to make it easier to work with the wireless protocol targetting home automation. But Z-Wave specifications were still closed, which meant Z-Wave chips could only be purchased from Silicon Labs, a bit like LoRa chip can only be purchased from Semtech. The advantage of being closed is that you’re the only supplier, but this will limit market adoption, and customers may be wary of relying on a single partner for their long term plans. That must be why The Z-Wave Alliance and Silicon Labs have now decided to open Z-Wave specifications to Silicon and Stack suppliers. That paves the way to third-party software platforms and Z-Wave radios from some of the 700+ companies which are members of the Z-Wave Alliance. The Z-Wave specification release is scheduled for H2 2020, and will include […]

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Silicon Labs Demonstrates Bluetooth 5.1 Location Technology (Video)

Recently there are been advancements related to precise indoor positioning with the announcement for Bluetooth 5.1 and 802.15.4z. Both can provide 1 to 10 centimeters accuracy with minimal lag, and Bluetooth 5.1 achieves this through Angle of Arrival (AoA) and Angle of Departure (AoD) features and an antenna array. I had never seen the new feature in action, but Silicon Labs recently demonstrated Bluetooth 5.1 location technology at Arrow IoT summit with a DMX-512 connected light following a person carrying a Bluetooth 5.1 tag. It looks fairly accurate, and it does not have a 3-6 seconds lag like previous solutions based on earlier versions of Bluetooth? So what does one need to enable Bluetooth 5.1 location finding? First, we’ll need a Bluetooth 5.1 base station with an antenna array, The one used above includes a 16 antenna array (4×4 grid) used to calculated angles of departure and arrival and ultimately […]

April 26, 2019June 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Wireless Gecko Series 2 MCU Delivers Extended Range, HW Security

Silicon Labs are recently introduced their Wireless Gecko Series 2 Arm Cortex-M33 MCU family that offers Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Thread connectivity for smart home, commercial and industrial IoT applications. The new family includes a dedicated security core as well as an on-chip radio which according to the company delivers 2.5 times the wireless range of competing solutions. Some of the highlights of the new wireless microcontroller includes: 80 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 core with TrustZone technology High RF performance with +20 dBm output power and up to +124.5 dB link budget Low active current (50.9 µA/MHz) Security Dedicated security core for faster, lower-power encryption Built-in true random number generator (TRNG) Secure boot loading Secure debug access control Tiny 4×4 mm QFN package Lower BOM count and system cost with fewer matching components and no need for external inductors or power amplifiers Flexible pre-certified modules based on EFR32xG21 SoCs planned for Q3 […]

October 3, 2018October 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Silicon Labs Releases Z-Wave Public SDK, Raspberry Pi 3 Image

Z-Wave is a wireless communication protocol initially developed by Zensys, before being purchased by Sigma Designs which provided Z-Wave compliant chips, and this year Silicon Labs purchased Z-Wave from Sigma Designs, Z-Wave is fairly popular in the US, and the Z-Wave alliance has certified around 2,400 products so far. However, we seldom hear about hobbyist projects featuring Z-Wave because the wireless protocol is proprietary, documentation was not available publicly, and you’d also need a few thousands dollars to get started: $4,000 a year to be a Z-Wave Alliance member, $2,500 for certification, and the development kit sells for about $2,000… But in 2016, things improved with Sigma Designs releasing Z-Wave Application Layer specifications publicly, as well as Z-Wave over IP (Z/IP), Z-Ware Middleware, and the Z-Wave S2 Security Specification. But you still needed to acquire the Z-Wave SDK and obtain access to the Z-Wave Technical Support website and the Z-Wave […]

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Silicon Labs WF200 WiFi Transceivers & WFM200 WiFi Modules are Designed for Battery Powered Devices

When it comes to power consumption, WiFi is not the best wireless standard around, and even the most power efficient WiFi SoCs/modules consume several times the power required for Bluetooth LE Tx or Rx. Yet we still have plenty of battery powered devices relying on WiFi, so companies are working on improving efficiency, and Silicon Labs has recently announced the WF200 transceivers and WFM200 modules that support 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and are said to slash power consumption in half. WF200 / WFM200 highlights: Low transmit (Tx: 138 mA) and receive (Rx: 48 mA) power 200 µA average Wi-Fi power consumption (DTIM = 3) Link budget of 115 dBm for long-range Wi-Fi transmissions Excellent antenna diversity and wireless coexistence in crowded 2.4 GHz environments Security – Secure boot and host interface, hardware cryptography acceleration supporting AES, PKE and TRNG Packages – 4 mm x 4 mm QFN32 transceiver and […]