GreenPeak Technologies, a developer of ultra-low-power wireless RF communication controller chips for the smart home, this week announced its support for the ZigBee Input Device standard.  

ZigBee Input Device is a global standard for greener, innovative and easy-to-use mice, keyboards, touchpads, wands and other input devices used with computers and consumer electronic devices. This standard enables consumers to use their devices from farther away—or even from another room—because operation is not limited to line-of-sight.

Thus, with GreenPeak technology, the set-top box becomes a home control box and monitors applications in and around the house, such as remote controls, security, energy efficiency, consumer electronics and appliances, home health care devices, HVAC and lighting.

The low latency of GreenPeak’s chip also allows ZigBee Input Device for game controllers to transfer data more quickly, enabling faster and more accurate gaming. Low latency makes the delays between an input being processed and the corresponding output imperceptible–providing real-time characteristics. This can be especially important for Internet connections using services such as online gaming and VOIP (voice over Internet protocol).

What’s more, because of lower power draw, devices using the ZigBee Input Device standard enjoy much longer battery life, greatly reducing the total number of batteries used – and disposed of – during the lifetime of the device.

GreenPeak, based in Utretcht, The Netherlands, has achieved Golden Unit status for its ZigBee Input Device stack software and also has made its development platform available to its customers to accelerate integration and product design.

“GreenPeak has supported the ZigBee Input Device standard since its inception. It is a great addition to the ZigBee RF4CE specifications and will make input devices more intuitive and greener.” commented Cees Links, founder and CEO of GreenPeak Technologies. “The ZigBee Alliance has established rigorous testing plans to ensure conformance to the standard and to ensure the highest standard of quality for all future ZigBee products. We are delighted to achieve the Golden Unit status. Our development platform, combined with Golden Unit certification, will enable our customers to quickly and easily deploy ZigBee Certified products using ZigBee Input Device.”

ZigBee RF4CE was designed to replace infrared (IR) remote controls with radio frequency (RF) and thereby offer non-line-of-sight operation, longer range and battery life for consumer electronic devices such as HDTV, home theater equipment, set-top boxes and other audio equipment

The ZigBee Alliance will host a free public webinar covering ZigBee Input Device as well as ZigBee Remote Control and the ZigBee RF4CE specification on December 6. “ZigBee RF4CE: A Quiet Revolution (News - Alert) is Underway” will be held from 8 a.m. through 9 am PST and feature speakers from the CE industry. To register, click here.

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