K Lightman writing from what she sees at CES.

Who is K Lightman?

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Karen Lightman
Executive Director
MEMS Industry Group

She knows it 

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Karen Lightman became MEMS Industry Group (MIG) managing director in 2007 and promoted to Executive Director in 2013.

What’s my number one? Something that I’ve known for a while but now really believe is the HOLY GRAIL to both the future success of wearables and IoT/Everything: POWER.  Power reduction and management through sensor fusion, power generation through energy harvesting as well as basic battery longevity. It became very clear from conversations at the MIG conference as well as in talking with folks on the show floor that the issue of power is the biggest challenge and opportunity facing us now.


The standard metric unit of power is the Watt. 

• The ArcticLink® 3 S2 at 150uW, the lowest power sensor hub for always-on, always-aware mobile applications, including hardware, software algorithms, and wearable and smartphone evaluation kits;

Nobody else puts in the right units....ATML G MCU?

 µA/MHz

U gotta do the story problem to get the real answer.  Obfuscation, see they DON"T want u to know the answer.

This is real time reporting from someone in a position to know what is the HOLY GRAIL....

its what QUIK is very good at.  

slide 11 goes here

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/QUIK/3854974132x0x803270/44b360e0-2975-4df0-b6c2-01a9fc14b9d3/QuickLogic_CES_2015_Presentation.pdf


QUIKs IP is increasingly valuable, not algo IP that they are building, but the whole way they have done the fusion.
It needs to be protected.  QUIK's slide deck still says patent pending.  They need to get the pending gone soon.

How is it coming QUIK.  It the Holy Grail now and some will want to take it. If you speak to management ask them how its coming.  Thanks in advance.

Nice read is here...

QUIK, it seems to be coming right at you...:-)

Wearable Devices and the Search for the Holy Grail at 2015 International CES®

JANUARY 16, 2015 / LEAVE A COMMENT

By Karen Lightman, Executive Director, MEMS Industry Group

I have listened to her speak and she really believes and enjoys her work and is good at her job.

Several years ago I coined the phrase “MEMS frickin’ everywhere.” I shared my vision for MEMS enabling a smarter and better world. This was before the term Internet of Things (IoT) had taken hold. My catchphrase got me into a bit of trouble with those offended by my use of a modified expletive as well as skeptics of the potential of MEMS.

Today that vision of MEMS everywhere seems passé and so obvious. That’s because the outlook for MEMS and sensors has never looked brighter – this was incredibly apparent to me at the 2015 International CES.

At this year’s CES, in addition to hosting the Sensors Marketplace on the show floor and hosting a booth with several of our member companies, MEMS Industry Group (MIG) hosted its third annual conference at CES. In 2013 we were invited by CEA to host a 1.5 hour conference; in 2014 it doubled to three hours and this year we filled an entire day of content plus a cocktail party. Some might say that MIG is growing as fast as the MEMS and sensors industry it represents!

2015 has already been heralded as the year of the wearable device and MIG chose wearables and the MEMS/sensors supply chain as the theme for our conference. We packed an impressive lineup of featured speakers and panelists. There have been several stories already posted by the press on the conference track as well as our exhibit so I won’t retell the already told. Instead I’d like to share with you my favorite quotes, moments and impressions from the entire show.

What’s my number one? Something that I’ve known for a while but now really believe is the HOLY GRAIL to both the future success of wearables and IoT/Everything: POWER.  Power reduction and management through sensor fusion, power generation through energy harvesting as well as basic battery longevity. It became very clear from conversations at the MIG conference as well as in talking with folks on the show floor that the issue of power is the biggest challenge and opportunity facing us now.

MIG’s recently announced Accelerated Innovation Community (AIC), an open source algorithm library for sensor fusion, is a good first step. AIC can help address the issue of sensor fusion to enable more powerful and power-efficient wearables and IoT/E. It has become clear that as an industry we’ve got to do more to address the issue of sensor fusion as well as power reduction, management and creation.  In order to be successful we need more folks onboard to participate in AIC as well as spread the word to end-users and integrators. Won’t you join our merry band of sensor fusion evangelists?

Favorite quote? It comes from David He, Chief Scientific Officer, Quanttus, when he described his company’s goal to find the “unkiller app” by enabling clinically accurate, contextual and continuous data that can empower people to truly take control of their health and yes, save lives. At our conference, David unveiled Quanttus’ never-seen-before health analytics that mapped the blood pressure of 200 people, which gave the audience a glimpse of the future described by Dr. Eric Topol in his book The Creative Destruction of Medicine. As someone who has been at the mercy of out-of-touch doctors who controlled my cancer treatment/healthcare, I welcome the day when I have a wearable device enabled by MEMS and sensors along with data analytics that gives me smart, useful and actionable data to help me guide and manage my own healthcare, thank you very much.

Lastly, being at CES this year reiterated my love and affection for MIG members. From the members who have been with MIG since its foundation in 2001 like Intel to our newest member, Virtuix (whose President joined MIG only minutes after speaking at MIG’s CES conference), MIG members totally rock. It was a pleasure and a delight to be in their company for one week, even at the world’s most insane tradeshow (because it’s in Vegas, after all).

MIG is a growing industry association in a growing industry. I’m confident that together, we can create a world that has MEMS and sensors frickin’ everywhere, but only if we continue to address the remaining challenges to commercialization. Won’t you join us?

The big thing that will happen in 2015 will be context aware smartphones. 

I estimate that it was in 2011 when QUIK IDed sensor hubs and drafted their plans for the FFE and hoped to keep it secret till fall of '13
They focused right in on the important issues and thought differently.

When Dr. Saxe thoughts in this item ( context smartphones)become real with a Flagship smartphone that can do things as he lays them out everybody at QUIK deserves to take a bow for the focus and energy of these past yrs.

As I let the descriptions of them fill my mind it's not hard to imagine that people will say I want one like that. They are better and will be a way to get the market share.

Usually the one who doesn't have it ( market share ) are the ones who want it most....time will tell.  Can the bottom 1/3rd beat the top dogs to market with this?

PS I spent about 20 minutes on compound searches with tags like these

context app sorting smartphone...and I did NOT find any Flagship.


  The only name that did pop up more than 1 time Google and Google now.  Consider that GOOG would want beta devices just like Dr. Saxe has described on their benches. They sold MOT but still keep the Nexus line testing stuff out...

Google Nexus is a line of consumer electronic devices that run the Android operating system. Google manages the design, development, marketing, and support of these devices, but some development and all manufacturing are carried out by partnering original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). 

So JUST for fun and a mental model.maybe its in the Nexus smartphone raodmap- it should be.

PS  Note that slide 8 at NEED has 8 algos in activities. The new ones are swimming, sleeping and heart rate.

QUIK speaks that most often algos move from the custom CSSP, where they are worked on initially and then into the catalog where they may be of use to smaller interested parties.

Consider that a wearable has use of many activity classifications of a fitness band.........

http://www.ecnmag.com/articles/2015/01/what-will-be-must-have-consumer-product-2015

5 stars here, as its so well articulated, use it to make some mental models of what will come to pass l8er this yr. Also continue to notice that until recently nobody much asked what Dr. Saxe thought.Now he's in demand and that should continue or increase-( like our new Frinds at PEEL) He is making the most of his increasing opportunities.  Nice that it just tells so well. Mispriced bet...

Tim Saxe, CTO, QuickLogic Corporation

The big thing that will happen in 2015 will be context aware smartphones. Apps have been sprouting like weeds because they bring great value to our lives by helping us make nearly every aspect of our lives more efficient.  However at the same time the phone is making the rest of our lives more efficient, the vast number of apps on the typical user’s phone is making the phone experience less efficient and more frustrating as the user has to flip through screens or dive through folders to find the appropriate app.  And to exacerbate the problem, the more we use the phone to manage our lives, the more we drain the battery creating the fear of being disconnected from our friends and colleagues and the services we have come to rely upon.

A context aware phone, one that knows where you are, can start to anticipate your needs. Sitting on a train? Then it is more likely that you are going to be listening to music and reading digital media – so make those apps more easily accessible.  Sitting down to breakfast? Then it is more likely that you are going to want the news and see how you did on fantasy football.  Sitting in your car?  Then it is more likely that you are going to be listening to music and using the navigation function – so make them easily accessible. Also, you don’t want to waste power logging into all of the WiFi networks that you drive past, so turn off the WiFi, and if you are the driver you do want to use Bluetooth, so turn that on.

The context aware phone will restore the simplicity that we had a few years ago without reducing the rich capabilities that have developed over the past few years, making this the big win for 2015.


The blog post that goes along with it...




So some of the above features are exactly what we might expect when someone rolls with a context aware phone.  It could change the device fairly QUIKly. Dr. Saxe articulates well how context will be a strong selling point for a device when it rolls.................

Commentary-  We did a LOT of work as I was ALL ready to add a meaningful position of NOD.OL 
as a focus holding as they are doing all the right things. But then then C Munger thing of looking at the lines on the bets.  NOD 10x valuation of current BLE revenue stream.  QUIK adding 100 man yrs of expertise and a LOT of it in Algo chef talents,  Those Movea, SPI Trusted P went for some good $$ and soon/perhaps already we are at the amount.  NO valuation is given 'lil QUIK for helping to usher in the above device.  SO I took those NOD.ol $$ and bought QUIK as the pay out is so much greater from where it is perceived to be to where it has come.

Preedicting The Future, 2015 Version, From Our Very Own CTO…

By Paul

Jan. 16, 2015 @ 9:28 am | Leave a comment

Our resident CTO, futurist, and marathoner Tim Saxe was featured in ECN Magazine’s recent panel on “What Will be the Must-Have Consumer Product of 2015“.

Of course, his opinion may be somewhat biased, but there is no doubt that makers of smartphones and wearables are working towards devices which as always-on, and always-aware.  They want devices that adapt to us (not the other way around).  Device OEMs benefit from a strong reliance on devices, carriers from increased bandwidth usage and user data, and advertisers from user data at a macro (or micro) level.

And users, of course, benefit in a great number of ways:

* Phones that will react to being in cars (i.e., shutting down the texting on the teenagers phone driving down Highway 101 at 80MPH in the early 90′s Honda with the flashy wheels, loud stereo, and engine sputtering through the chainsaw muffler)

* Wearables that produce accurate fitness assessments and recommendation– taking data on cadence of steps, altitude, speed, time sitting vs walking, intensity of heart rate, UV exposure and others, instead of a simple step count (which is the most basic of measurements)

* Tablets that can be used to measure living conditions, including your houses humidity levels, temperature, air quality, etc…

…and a whole host of other applications just now being conceived

- See more at: http://blog.quicklogic.com/corporate/predicting-the-future-2015-version-from-our-very-own-cto/#sthash.3EToN384.dpuf

QUIK may very well be in every one of the above beta devices that are being tested on the benches and some of which will make it to market in the first half of '15.
I have looked for yrs. to find other investments in this arena.  I did see what Authentec had and owned some shares when Apple took them out.  NOD was the best diversification to QUIK for me to come along, but the discount given to QUIK, as though they are not in the ecosystems of sensors/sensor fusion, werables, IoT etc is just wrong.  They are increasingly in the ecosystem so I will buy shares until it is repriced as a member of this exclusive group of companies.
It is a mispriced bet- is what the subjective probabilities increasingly say to me.  The fact that Dr. Saxe is getting so much more well deserved press time is just one way to see how things are different by a LOONG way from even 6 months ago.

I ended up taking the push out of the FLagship smartphone with the S2 as a good thing to allow more expansion of the allocation for this time.

http://wsw.com/webcast/needham69/quik/3__Slide8.JPG

A key component of QUIKs solution going forward. Swimming heart rate, sleeping are new to this slide.  There are more under NDA with customers.  The SenseME TM is also new.

So what did I do?

Thought hard over buying a meaningful amount of NOD.OL.

Discussed it with my bfast friends. Read a ton. Didn't do that.

I shook the mattress and came up with more than spare change.
Bought more QUIK yest and today. With all this work I felt pretty good to be able to buy shares
at the prices I got. I made a 10% expansion of the share count.  Time will tell, but its not so far away now. ;-).  I promised myself not to be an observer, ie if you do ALL this work you have to do what the subjective probabilities say is the thing to do. But that is why they are subjective- someone sold them to me....why would they do that?  Companies you can buy in this space are more than limited.

The coral reef of sensor fusion just has too much stuff going on for their not to be a return on this investment this yr.  It may be substantial. I am satisfied to have been able to expand my investment
in this business at this price.
RC what did u do?

Looking ahead to Barcelona.  Nordic says this.....

MWC 2015

Mobile is transforming communication, advancing the next payment system that alters commerce, and expanding ways in which we interact. Similarly the world’s premier industry continues to expand. Mobile World Congress is taking place at Fira Gran Via – the world-class venue in the heart of the Mobile World Capital. 
Get a opportunity to witness the industry’s continued expansion and growth.

We are attending MWC on the Norwegian Pavilion again this year!

Nordic Semiconductor will be located at stand #6H20, on the Norwegian Pavilion hosted by Innovation Norway in Hall 6.

As last year we have special guests to hold exciting demos on our stand. More info will come closer to the event.

We look forward to the first week in March and hope to see many of you there.

Here is a recap from MWC 2014:

Some of the MWC 2014 Nordic Team, here with Akinori Takahagi from Moff, would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came to our booth and our partners for a great show!

Nordic Semiconductor was this year located in booth #6H20 at the Norwegian Pavilion hosted by Innovation Norway in Hall 6.

We hosted a variation of product demonstrations from partners throughout the whole week.

I want these snips on one page….

Dr Saxe on the panel at CES

audio is achieving things, especially when its data is fused with other sensors, to greatly reduce the power needed by wearables. For instance, audio can determine the wearables context more easily, according to Saxe.

The job listing

name of job

Senior Staff Voice System Architect

Own the definition of the system and hardware/software architecture for voice technology for QuickLogic’s smart sensor hub for smartphones and wearable. The initial focus will be around voice trigger and voice command for mobile devices.

One very big thing is that the things QUIK is toiling so hard on have no end point in sight, ie the roadmap just goes on and on, so there is no end in sight right now for what can be done.

A nice read here...

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325262

ES 2015: MEMS that Wearables/IoT Need

Power issues are key

R. Colin Johnson

1/12/2015 07:00 AM EST 
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ORLANDO, Fla. — All things MEMS, especially how they provide greater functionality in smaller, more power-efficient wearable Internet of Things (IoT) devices, was the overall theme of the “Sensors and MEMS Technology" track at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015, June 6-8, Las Vegas) sponsored by the MEMS Industry Group (MIG, Pittsburgh).
"MEMS/sensors are the frontline ‘edge’ device collecting the raw data from the environment, such as pressure and temperature, or human body data, such as number of steps taken and heart rate," Stephen Whalley, chief strategy officer at MIG told EE Times. "In wearable devices and IoT applications such as smart homes, buildings, cities and vehicles, they usually form a sensing cluster around the application processor, feeding it with every sensory change taking place. That data is then processed using algorithms to make sense of it so that humans or machines can react appropriately."

Panel members of the "Getting to Low Power and Maximum Functionality through Sensor Fusion" at the “Sensors and MEMS Technology" track at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015, June 6-8, Las Vegas) from left, moderator (standing) Stephen Whalley, chief strategy officer at MEMS Industry Group; Becky Oh, CEO of PNI Sensor; Behrooz Abdi, CEO at InvenSense, Inc.; Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO and general manager of Bosch Sensortec; Timothy Saxe, CTO of QuickLogic; and Benedetto Vigna, executive vice president and general manager, Analog, MEMS & Sensors Group at STMicroelectronics.
(Source: MIG)

Wearable strategies are all over the map, said Steve Holmes, vice president of the New Devices Group and general manager of the Smart Device Innovation Group at Intel, in the opening keynote "Make it Wearable."
One of the biggest problems with keeping them powered, because they are usually always-on and thus need to constantly stay charged to be useful. Besides the technical side, according to Holmes three things define wearables in 2015: "intimacy, immediacy and persistence."
Intimacy, he said, means you keep them close to you, but discretely, such as in the Synapse Dress, which debuted at the 2014 Intel Development Forum, but which was created by the Dutch fashion-tech designer, Anouk Wipprecht, in collaboration with Italian architect Niccolo Casas who specializes in 3-D printing. The dress sensed the electrical impulses it wearer changing its brightness in response to whether the wearer is tense or relaxed.

Nixie is the first wearable quad-copter and camera. It won the Intel $500,000 "Make It Wearable" contest and can snap together around your wrist as a wearable.
Holmes described some of the novel products submitted to Intel's Make It Wearable challenge with a grand prize of $500,000 going to a wearable flyable quad-copter which can be worn on the wrist.
During the day long MEMS conference at CES, the tracks concentrated on powering wearable included tracks on "Transforming Wearables through Bluetooth Smart," "Beyond Audio with Biometric Earbuds," "Wearables: A Very Real Market Opportunity," "MEMS and Sensors for a Smart IoT," "Waiting for the Holy Grail -- Clinically Accurate, Contextual, and Continuous Data," and "The Dynamic Duo: Wearables and People Analytics."
The final panel, moderated by Whalley, "Getting to Low Power and Maximum Functionality through Sensor Fusion" focused on how consumers are demanding greater functionality in smaller, more power-efficient wearables. The panel members discussed many diverse approaches to meet this challenge including more sophisticated hardware/software sensor fusion, integrating smarter ‘sensor hubs’ and how can original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and embedded systems integrators (ESIs) can take full advantage of MEMS and other sensors in their wearable devices.
The panelists included Behrooz Abdi, CEO at InvenSense, Inc., Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO and general manager of Bosch Sensortec, Becky Oh, CEO of PNI Sensor, Timothy Saxe, CTO of QuickLogic, and Benedetto Vigna, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Analog, MEMS & Sensors Group at STMicroelectronics.
The first question inquired as what the current OEM demands for battery life are for battery powered wearable devices, to which Oh said that today smart watches need to extend their current lifetimes of up to 8 hours to at least 24 hours.
Click image to start slideshow; images open in new tab on your browser.

Fashion will be the driving force for high-end wearable according to Steve Holmes, vice president of the New Devices Group and general manager of the Smart Device Innovation Group at Intel.
(Source: Intel)

"A day on a smart watch a day's battery life would be great -- but we don’t have that yet," said Oh.

Benedetto added that it depends on the final application, but agreed that power consumption is limiting the functionality of smartwatches. Today FitBIt has a product whose charge lasts more than one day, which is one reason they are market leader with "70% market share in the fourth quarter of 2014".

When asked where the biggest power savings can come from in a wearable device Behrooz said it’s the sum of  the display, processor, communications, sensors and software. In some use cases, such as always-on applications, you have limit the use of communications and GPS which runs down batteries quickly. But if you use sensor fusion to keep most of the battery-hungry circuitry off until needed, you can extend battery life to reasonable lengths.

Saxe added that consumers would prefer to have a battery life of 3-to-6 months with wearables that merely use sensors to report the data a smartphone. But today wearables are just being used by early adopters, for the market to really take off he said we need to have the battery/power issue solved to have wider adoption.

"The top issues depend on whether the developer is thinking of a wearable device without a display, or one with a display. For devices without a display the top challenge is how to get really, really long battery life.  The goal seems to be 6 months minimum, with 1 year preferred. For devices with a display the challenge is control and people want non-touch ways to control the device.  How to make this ‘intuitive’ i.e. convenient, repeatable and easily discoverable, is an emerging area so people have lots of ideas and need to quickly try them out and refine them," said Saxe
.

To meet the demands of OEMs in terms of power reduction, Stefan said that every part of the application has to be power-reduced to a minimum. Benedetto added that the slowdown in the smartphone market is making OEMs perceive wearables as the 'Holy Grail,' but predicted that it would take at least three years to even get a grip on the power management systems of the future that hardwire functions to "wake up" micro-controllers for the shortest time possible.

The key according to Oh will be smarter algorithms that can batch data for a minimum of on-time for processing.

"The next 'big' algorithm for sensor hubs for wearables will be the one that achieves the lowest power," said Oh."Having a DSP doesn’t make you a sensor hub -- you have to have smart software."

Abdi added that batching data is part of the solution, and that their newest devices take that route, but in a hierarchical mode, where some of the data is processed in the cloud and some on the device. He also noted that one of the greatest ways to help is to do background calibration.

The panel also discussed how audio is achieving things, especially when its data is fused with other sensors, to greatly reduce the power needed by wearables. For instance, audio can determine the wearables context more easily, according to Saxe.

However, to achieve the minimum power envelop for wearables, according to Oh, eventually energy harvesting is going to have to enter the mix with all those other ways of minimizing power.

"Energy harvesting will create a whole new generation of products, we’ll see sensors -- even see customized packaged goods. We'll have sensor caps on our teeth to determine how much we eat; determine the calories, the type of food, and harvest energy from chewing," Oh predicted.

Saxe added that the energy harvesting form factor will have to be virtually invisible, sensors in your clothing will become ubiquitous for health issues, such as quickly identifying when a person has a stroke so that medical aid can arrive in minimum of time.MAIL THIS

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PEEL is just on the move....

Smart Remote App Peel Technologies Expands in Asia

  
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Peel smart remote control application on select smartphones

 

Peel Technologies

U.S.-based smart remote control application Peel Technologies is gearing up for global expansion after securing funding from Chinese Internet giant Alibaba.

The company,  which raised $5 million from Alibaba in 2013 and closed a second round of funding of $50 million in June,  has acquired a Shanghai-based rival Mozitek for an undisclosed sum to jump start its efforts in China, the country with over 1.2 billion mobile users.

The Peel smart remote control application, which can is installed on select smartphones, uses an infrared blaster in order to communicate with anything that uses a remote control including TVs, set top boxes and air conditioners.

Some hardware manufacturers integrate Peel’s infrared software in their phones, eliminating the need for certain chips to manage the infrared blaster,  reducing costs, space required and energy usage, according to Thiru Arunachalam, a former product manager at Apple who co-founded Peel in 2009.

The Peel smart remote control, which has over 118 million active users, is also expanding its presence in India by forming partnerships with local phone makers including Spice, Celkon and Lava Xolo.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Peel Co-founder and CEO Arunachalam discusses the company’s strategy and expansion plans. Edited excerpts:

WSJD: What is your approach to the China’s market?

Arunachalam: Peel has always been a global first, mobile first company. China was always considered as one of the important global markets for us to conquer because it has a large and growing consumer base for smartphones and there are so many fast-growing Chinese smartphone vendors with global aspirations. We studied what Google did in China before entering the market. Some foreign companies actually tried to take their products and force them into China. But Peel has adopted a local strategy. We are different from Google who sent their U.S. engineers to China. We acquired a local smart remote control company, Mozitek, to take advantage of the company’s localized products and existing sales relationships with Chinese hardware makers. Mozitek’s CEO has become Peel’s head of sales for China. I want the local team to operate independently with its own line of Chinese products and clients.We also have teamed up with Chinese hardware makers ZTE and TCL as they know the local consumer behavior.

WSJD: What are your growth targets for China’s market?

Arunachalam: We are now focusing on growing our users in China first before thinking of making money. In the U.S. market, we only started monetizing our application in the fourth-year of operation. We will continue to beef up our team in China and we aim to have 100 million users in the country by 2016. U.S. is a small country compared to China and Latin America. Currently, 35% of our users are from North America, 30% are from Asia and 25% come from Europe.I expect our user distribution will change as China’s market will continue to grow. China is great for us as many Chinese hardware makers also manufacture devices for India, another important market in Asia.

WSJD: How would Alibaba help Peel’s expansion in China?

Arunachalam: Alibaba is currently helping with strategic advice regarding developing relationships with Chinese hardware manufacturers, distribution partners and local acquisitions, as well as assisting with introduction to potential business development and marketing partners. To date, Alibaba has taken a relatively hands-off approach to its investment, encouraging Peel to focus on consumer experience and rapid growth rather than revenue.

WSJD:  Would Alibaba’s investment affect your potential cooperation with other major Chinese Internet companies?

Arunachalam: Commercial cooperation is not a problem. There is no reason that we cannot work with Tencent and other Chinese Internet companies. In fact, we are working with Chinese search engine Baidu to promote our customized shareable URL links that let users tune in directly to TV shows. Peel will also partner with China’s Twitter-like social platform Sina Weibo to reach more users in the country.

WSJD: Is Peel in talks or looking to acquire more technology companies in China and Asia?

Arunachalam : Yes, we are keeping an eye out for potential synergistic companies to acquire. Peel currently has sales offices in both South Korea and India.

WSJD: What do you think of competition with other smart remote control applications?

Arunachalam: We know the customers and we already have millions of users. I doubt if other rivals can catch up as we have scale.  We also have  patents to protect our technology.


QUIK can you ride on PEELs alibaba fame right into CHINA?
THe OEMs will need flagships that have a hub and PEEL....also expand with them into the smarthome.

Can you be there on their table at MWC?

 Thanks in advance.

What does QCOM think of wearables?

Qualcomm Says Wearables Aren't a Fad, And It Might Just Be Right

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Sean Hollister

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Sean Hollister

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• QUALCOMM
• PANKAJ KEDIA
• INGESTIBLES
• INTERVIEW

Monday 1:35pm

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"This trend is not going away," says Pankaj Kedia, the head of Qualcomm's new wearables business unit. "This is not a fad." Of course he'd say that—his job depends on it. But who other than Qualcomm—the company which dominates the mobile industry—would know for sure? So I grilled Qualcomm's wearables boss about our sensor-equipped future.

Why aren't wearables a fad?

I tell Kedia I'm not convinced by smartwatches, that I've yet to see a smartwatch do anything more conveniently that I can do by just pulling out my phone—that the mere ability to not have to pull out my phone isn't worth charging a second device every evening. But for the right use cases, argues Kedia, wearables can make sense. "We don't ask do you need a bike, if you have a car. It's the right device for the right scenario."

For instance, wearables aren't just wristbands and fancy augmented reality glasses. What about wearable cameras?

"We were talking to GoPro when people didn't know how to spell GoPro," says Kedia. "When I go bungie jumping, I wear it. How many things do you want to have on you when you go bungie jumping?"

What about devices for kids? Kedia shows me the Infomark Joon, a super simple wristphone designed for Korean children ages 3 to 7. It's got a built-in GPS so you can keep an eye on their location, and it lets them call home or call for help with a single button press. "You're not going to give your three-year-old a phone, but you want to know where she is," points out the Qualcomm exec.

And though he won't talk about the dollar signs, Kedia says the first crop of smartwatches are doing "quite well" too. "We're in the first inning of an [nine]-inning game... think about the first smartphones, the first tablets... we are in that stage." It also speaks volumes, he points out, that these wearables are already on sale in 30+ countries.

What's next?

"There is technology coming where you can sense your individuality," says Kedia, suggesting that wearables could be excellent personal identification devices. Who hasn't heard of the idea of replacing your passwords with a ring you wear on your finger?

Kedia sees battery life improving steadily, even for the more powerful wristables: "Today, you're seeing two-day kind of battery life, a week of battery in clock or standby mode. You'll see two days going to three days and four days over the next couple of years."

Quick charging, as seen in the recent crop of smartphones, is also coming to wearable devices. What's the point of having a smartwatch that can track my sleep if it needs to be on the charger every evening? "Most days I take a shower," replies Kedia, implying that we might be able to juice up the tiny batteries in these devices really, really fast.

More and more sophisticated sensors are on the way. "Today you don't have GPS in every watch. Why don't you have GPS in every watch?" Plus environmental sensors, like ones that can measure air quality.

And, despite our not-so-favorable impressions of the Samsung Gear S wristphone, Qualcomm believes that more and more wearables will have cellular connectivity. But they won't necessarily need to use their own cellular radio all the time—they'll smartly transition between using your Bluetooth-connected phone, Wi-Fi, and cellular, something Kedia calls "always-connected" for short.

"This is gravity. A phone without service is useless. Three years from now, a wristwatch without always-connected will be an anomaly," Kedia predicts.

Three to five years out, he says, we might even have ingestibles that that can warn doctors about impending heart attacks. "In our labs we're working on stuff like that." You might joke about eating batteries, but it's a serious idea.

Why Qualcomm?

Again, of course Qualcomm would say that wearables are a great business opportunity now that they've decided a business opportunity exists. They're duty-bound to help create a market for the technology now. But the fact that Qualcomm has decided to do just that is a pretty good sign for the future of wearables.

Instead of using (comparatively) power-hungry processors with extraneous features like quad cores and powerful 3D graphics, Qualcomm could make purpose-built chipsets for the wearable space that better match those needs. Kedia hints as much during our conversation. And Qualcomm has invested in low-power Mirasol screens, wireless charging specifications, and all sorts of sensor technologies that could help too.

Qualcomm's now a company with a lot of clout, and a company that has a lot of incentive to make it happen. Because when Qualcomm bet big on smartphones back in the '90s, they set themselves up to become the next Intel—the company inside devices changing the worl