SPARK Microsystems Unveils Development Kit Harnessing Advanced Presence Detection Capabilities at Ultra-Low Power

New presence detection kit equips designers, integrators and OEMs to speed time to market with superior wireless connectivity for real-time positioning applications

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SPARK Microsystems, a Canadian fabless semiconductor company specializing in next-generation short-range wireless communications, today announced a new presence detection kit (PDK) that enables designers to break the barriers of legacy wireless connectivity for next-generation smart devices with advanced presence detection capabilities.

Presence-aware IoT devices for applications spanning healthcare, industry, construction, access control and beyond are compromised by significant power consumption and battery life challenges imposed by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless platforms. These platforms also suffer from heavy interference in congested environments with multiple active devices and overlapping signal sources, undermining reliability and performance. Likewise, conventional UWB technology used for presence detection suffers from major power efficiency impediments and cost penalties. SPARK’s LE-UWB™ innovation eliminates these constraints.

With SPARK’s new PDK, developers can quickly and easily implement SPARK LE-UWB™ connectivity to achieve breakthrough gains in power efficiency, battery life and signal robustness while minimizing development complexity and costs to accelerate time to market.

Supported capabilities include unidirectional and bidirectional communications, ultra-low power beaconing with highly customizable detection zones, and line-of-sight Time of Flight (ToF) calculation for precise proximity and distance measurement. Compared to Bluetooth/BLE beaconing, SPARK LE-UWB™ technology consumes more than 10X less power (30 µW power consumption at a 4 Hz sample rate). When compared to conventional UWB systems, SPARK enables over 20X greater power efficiency.

“The demand for presence detection solutions for people, assets, and equipment is growing rapidly. Deployment costs and maintenance related to battery replacement, along with interference resilience and solution flexibility, have become key differentiators in an increasingly competitive market,” said Alberto Prud’homme, Product Manager, SPARK Microsystems. “A new approach is needed to achieve low power, robust and interference-resilient presence detection, leveraging development efficiencies that eliminate guesswork and speed design cycles. SPARK’s new PDK is the perfect starting point to accelerate the creation of next-generation, context-aware connected devices.”

SPARK Microsystems provides a flexible, energy-optimized firmware stack that integrates easily into target environments. The presence detection stack includes APIs for beaconing, ranging, data transmission and over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates, giving developers the versatility to build scalable, future-ready systems with minimal engineering overhead.

SPARK supplies reference hardware kits, demonstration applications and intuitive GUIs to assist engineers in evaluating detection performance, adjusting detection zones and speeding prototype development. The included PDK hardware components are carefully selected to optimize performance, power consumption and costs in a production-ready architecture. Developers benefit from easy integration across a broad range of MCUs and software architectures.

SPARK’s new presence detection kits are available to order today. For more information about available board and development kit configurations, contact [e-mail]

About SPARK Microsystems

SPARK Microsystems is building next-generation short-range wireless communication devices for consumer, industrial and medical applications. Leveraging patented LE-UWB™ technology, SPARK delivers ultra-low-power, high-speed wireless connectivity with unmatched interference robustness and exceptionally low latency. LE-UWB™ technology is ideally suited for wearables, peripherals, tags, sensors, and other IoT-connected devices that require reliable, high-performance data communication, as well as ranging and positioning capabilities. SPARK makes it possible to minimize and ultimately eliminate wires and batteries from a wide range of applications underserved by existing wireless technologies. For more information, please visit sparkmicro.com.

SPARK MICROSYSTEMS and LE‑UWB are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARK Microsystems in Canada and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.