Smart remote gets voice activation with Bluetooth

Is everything smart yet? When does the label ’smart’ just become the norm? You would presume when everyone stops using the ‘dumb’ variety of products — well it might be a long time before that happens to your TV remote. However Nordic Semiconductor have introduced reference designs for smart remote controls with Bluetooth.

Nordic Semiconductor have improved on its reference designs that have appeared over the last few years. Aimed at manufacturers who may wish to incorporate all or some of the hardware or software technology into their products.

The new nRFready Smart Remote 3 reference design brings voice activation and input using advanced speech recognition. Along side 6-axis motion sensing, a multi-touch trackpad and the usual programmable buttons. In fact much of what Apple incorporated into its New Apple TV remote, but with buttons!

“One area we have worked hard to really further optimize is the voice input control. This includes developing an even more robust wireless link for wireless audio data, and 20% better current consumption” — Nordic Semiconductor product marketing manager, John Leonard

Talk To Smart Remote

The big push this year seems to be voice input, appearing on the Apple TV remote, as well as Google and Amazon products already. Nordic Semiconductor have developed the voice input to offer a robust and low bandwidth solution compatible with many current speech recognition systems.

This is a reference device, so is aimed at developers and producers of entertainment equipment to build into their technology. As such a development kit is needed (nRF51 DK) that must be purchased separately. There is an included example remote control (seen above) that can be used for evaluation and testing but it is dam ugly!

Nordic Semiconductor is a innovator in many industries, so these reference devices are usually a good indicator of what to expect in entertainment equipment in the near future. If you are interested in finding out more about the smart remote head over to Nordic Semiconductor.