World’s lowest power Wi-Fi technology to be available for smart home applications

Rockchip has announced that its new RKi6000, the world’s lowest power Wi-Fi technology, will be available for smart home applications, including smart plugs, intelligent access controls, smart cameras, home appliances, wearables, and more. The RKi6000 is the new ultra-low power Wi-Fi and memory technology that greatly reduces power consumption of IoT (Internet of Things) smart devices by 85%, allowing the use of AAA batteries for up to 35 years and the use of coin batteries in everyday appliances and devices. The new technology advances the widespread adoption of IoT by providing more efficient power, a lower price, smaller size, and the ability to use Wi-Fi for the development of IoT devices, says the company. Awarded numerous international technical patents for the new Wi-Fi technology, the Rockchip RKi6000 SoC (systems on chip) processor technology sets a new standard for Wi-Fi, with power consumption now equal to that of Bluetooth 4.0 LE (Low Energy), with receiving power consumption around 20mAh during use, 85% lower than standard Wi-Fi built with RF architecture. When compared with the Bluetooth/ZIGBEE standard, Wi-Fi is more convenient to use with the easy Internet connection provided by the standard Wi-Fi infrastructure, but because of its high power requirements, Wi-Fi was previously unable to be incorporated into portable devices with an electrical current limit. The RKi6000’s on-chip processor and memory technology resolves this power issue, reducing power consumption to make Wi-Fi equal to Bluetooth LE, advancing the adoption of IoT devices by breaking Wi-Fi’s power consumption bottleneck, says the company. The Rockchip RKi6000 will be available starting Q3 2015, says the company.