U‑blox components are at the core of two new GNSS golf products. The golf rangefinder wearables were launched by Voice Caddie, an international brand of rangefinders and trackers based in South Korea.
The T3 Hybrid Golf GPS Watch uses the compact u‑blox UBX‑G7020‑KT professional‑grade GNSS chip, which links with GPS/QZSS or GLONASS satellite systems.
The B1 GPS Band uses the u‑blox UBX‑M8030‑KT professional‑grade GNSS chip, which provides navigation sensitivity and low current consumption. It is compatible with GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou satellite systems.
The u‑blox GNSS technology enables the T3 Watch and the B1 Band to automatically detect golf courses and holes, and shows the wearer the driving distance and remaining distance to the hole as well as the distance to the front, middle and back of the green. The T3 Watch also measures short distances.
“Miniaturization is key to our goal to make truly mobile golfing technology wearables,” said Ho‑Hyeong Lee, director of the Research Center at Voice Caddie parent company Ucomm Technology. “The u‑blox GNSS chips are the ideal solution for our products, because of a combination of their compact size, low power‑consumption and low cost. This has helped us to create advanced, comfortable products at the price points we were targeting.”
Both companies foresee further collaboration with high precision GNSS and short range solutions.
Reyax Technology, an industrial and telematics systems provider for aftermarket telematics, has launched a new industrial router platform that incorporates cellular, short range and GNSS modules from u-blox.
The RYW2000 4G LTE and Wi-Fi hot-spot router platform uses the EVA-M8M, a tiny concurrent GNSS module, a TOBY-L2 cellular LTE module that offers throughput of up to 150 Mb/s with LTE Cat.4, and an ELLA-W131 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module.
“We selected u-blox modules because of their market-leading performance, excellent environmental tolerance characteristics and the fact they develop all of their technology in-house,” said Ritchie Chang, general manager of REYAX Technology. “Our RYW2000 router platform is designed for industrial and telematics applications where performance, reliability and conformance to changing environmental conditions are all critical to the success of our product.”
Front and back of the Toby L2 module.
The new router platform RYW2000 includes a router platform card for Industrial and telematics applications and measures only 50.95mm x 30mm. Its operating condition and power are DC 3.3V-5.5V.
Ming Chiang, country manager of u-blox Taiwan explains, “This is another example of our on-going collaboration with REYAX Technology and we are excited they have chosen to incorporate three of our modules into their RYW2000 product. Together we have a shared vision for the promotional of IoT and M2M technologies to benefit many industries and applications.”
U-blox is introducing a new module designed to speed time to market for system developers of GNSS applications who have limited experience in RF and antenna design.
The SAM-M8Q GNSS receiver with integrated antenna is housed in a tiny 15.5 by 15.5 by 6.3 millimeter package. It can be easily embedded in small devices that require location information, such as asset tracking and telematics systems, and generic automotive after-market applications, u-blox said.
By using the latest u-blox M8 multi-GNSS receiver technology, the module is able to offer simultaneous reception of GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo satellite signals.
Ultra-compact SAM-M8Q module.
The combination of an integrated wide-band antenna along with the module’s SAW filter and low-noise amplifier (LNA)architecture ensures that the SAM-M8Q receiver delivers robust performance in the presence of high frequency signals from other electronic equipment, such as cellular modems, which can cause interference.
“The SAM-M8Q is intended for customers who don’t have much experience in RF and antenna design,” said Kim Kaisti, Director, Product Management, Product Center Positioning. He added, “It is aimed at applications that require an embedded antenna and where the surface mount package allows for easier assembly and installation in the end-equipment.”
Samples of the SAM-M8Q will be available in mid-January 2017. The modules will be in full production in mid-February 2017.
U-blox has launched the LARA-R3121, a new module comprising a single-mode LTE Category 1 modem and a GNSS positioning engine specifically designed for Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) devices.
The LARA-R3121 is designed for IoT applications including smart utility metering, connected health and patient monitoring, smart buildings, security and video surveillance, smart payment and point-of-sale (POS) systems, as well as wearable devices, such as action cameras.
“Most IoT modules on the market use LTE modem technology, developed by handset-focused silicon vendors. They may not provide the best fit for IoT applications, because they focus on features targeted at Tier 1 handset makers, limited by short life cycles. The LARA-R3121 is different with features and qualifications crafted for the industrial markets,” said Andreas Thiel, u-blox co-founder and executive VP, Cellular Products and IC Design. “This is the only cellular module comprising a LTE Cat 1 modem and a GNSS engine, with complete module hardware and software all developed by a single supplier. With our focus on the IoT market, we bring an ‘IoT first’ approach to silicon design.”
The LARA-R3121 is supplied in the small 24 x 26 mm LARA LGA form factor for compact IoT devices. This standardized package enables straightforward automated manufacturing and is pin-compatible with the u-blox LARA-R2 series, which supports multimode LTE Cat 1 with 2G/3G fallback.
LARA-R3121 module by u-blox.
According to the company, it is a landmark in u-blox’s long-term strategy to create modules based on the UBX-R3 LTE modem technology platform, an internally developed, flexible, software-defined modem architecture specifically designed for IoT and M2M.
The essential modem, positioning and module components of the LARA-R3121 are developed in-house, allowing for freedom for innovative feature development, for enabling end-to-end security and giving full control of product quality, while ensuring the long term product availability required by many IoT applications. Because modem and GNSS technologies were all developed in-house, u-blox is also able to provide unparalleled technical support for developers.
The LARA-R3121 features FOTA, providing customers with a solution to issue firmware over the air updates. It also benefits from end-to-end security features, such as secure boot, secure transport layer, secure authentication, secure interfaces and APIs. Like other cellular modules from u-blox, it complies with a nested architecture, which allows for easy migration, and future-proof, seamless mechanical scalability across cellular technologies.
As a single mode, LTE-only device, LARA-R3121 takes advantage of the fact that LTE networks are becoming universally available. Increasingly, products do not require fallback to 3G or 2G, which means that non-essential components can be removed, reducing cost and power consumption.
The 10 Mbits downstream and 5 Mbits upstream maximum throughput of LTE Cat 1 provides data rates sufficient for good quality video streaming.
u-blox has announced ARM mbed OS 5 support for the ODIN-W2 wireless Internet of Things (IoT) gateway module and the NINA-B1 Bluetooth low energy module.
The ARM mbed OS 5 incorporates a real-time operating system (RTOS) in the core of the operating system. This open environment provides all the features needed to rapidly deploy and develop connected IoT products based on an ARM Cortex-M microcontroller, including security, connectivity and drivers for sensors and I/O devices. On existing u-blox ODIN-W2 and NINA-B1 hardware, customers can now rapidly develop wireless IoT applications making it easier to cut costs, development time and footprint, the company.
At ARM TechCon, held Oct. 26-27 in Santa Clara, California, u-blox will showcase the NINA-B1 and ODIN-W2 in a powerful and responsive IoT sensor-to-gateway-to-cloud scenario. In the live demonstration, the ODIN-W2 will read sensor data via Bluetooth low energy technology from NINA-B1-equipped sensors, and simultaneously stream it via Wi-Fi to an IBM cloud server, allowing for real-time data visualization and analysis.
“The unique combination of u-blox’s ODIN-W2 and NINA-B1 with ARM mbed OS 5 creates the best performing complete IoT architecture solution for applications from sensor data collection to flexible intelligent gateway processing and cloud connectivity, with full support for customer code — all based on the most proven embedded application platform,” said Hakan Svegerud, head of Product Strategy, Short Range Radio, at u-blox.
The already certified ODIN-W2, NINA-B1 and wireless stacks are designed for typical embedded applications, which require a small footprint implementation with responsive, high-performance hardware and an open CPU architecture. Usage scenarios include IoT, and medical and industrial applications, that use multiple sensors and/or smart gateways linked by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. ODIN-W2’s 1-MB of flash memory offers ample space for all the customer software required to create a powerful gateway.
The ARM mbed development environment, with its extensive tools and libraries, gives embedded application designers and developers full access to each u-blox module’s ARM Cortex-M4 based microcontroller. This allows them to avoid the need for an external host CPU — not only saving bill of materials costs and development resources, but also keeping the board footprint to an absolute minimum.
In addition to providing a consistent development process across multiple products, this environment allows an extremely broad range of sensor and actuator-based IoT designs to be implemented on a single, compact, certified wireless module. Moreover, the u-blox open standard approach ensures ease of IoT connectivity, while still accelerating type approval certification by controlling access to the wireless stacks. All of these advantages combine to reduce time to market to a minimum.
Japan-based Nikken Lease has tapped into positioning and cellular technologies from u-blox for its new trackable pallet, Transeeker.
Transeeker is a pallet equipped with u-blox’s cellular and positioning technologies for accurate tracking: u-blox cellular UMTS/HSPA(+) module LISA-U200-62S and u-blox 7 standalone GNSS module, EVA-7M.
For the first time, Nikken Lease is offering its GNSS-enabled pallets as a rental service. Made of plastic, the pallets are reusable, making them a good ecological alternative to their wooden counterpart.
“When we designed Transeeker, we wanted to ensure that we could locate a pallet precisely and retrieve it nationwide at low costs for our customers,” said Tsumura, planning director for Nikken Lease. “u-blox is just the right partner with excellent product performance and unique features such as CellLocate.”
Embedded in Transeeker, the LISA-U200-62S of the LISA-U2 series is equipped with CellLocate, u-blox’s proprietary hybrid positioning technology enabling stand-alone location estimation based on surrounding GSM/UMTS cell information in conjunction with GPS positioning data.
The module also offers worldwide W CDMA(UMTS) and GPRS/EDGE coverage, and an easy migration to u-blox GSM/GPRS, CDMA and LTE modules. Also found in Transeeker, the EVA-7M single GNSS module features the reliable performance of the u-blox 7 positioning engine (receiving GPS, GLONASS, QZSS and SBAS signals) and delivers high sensitivity and minimal acquisition times in the ultra-compact EVA form factor.
“This collaboration with Nikken Lease should help us strengthen our position in the Japanese market as a key player for IoT applications,” explains Tesshu Naka, Country Manager of u-blox Japan. “We are looking forward to more collaboration with Nikken Lease.”
DT Research has released the DT395CR and DT395GS rugged tablets. While designed for field professionals, the tablets cost less than consumer-grade tablets over the lifetime of the product, DT Research said.
The DT395GS rugged tablet by DT Research.
Both DT395 tablets are highly durable to withstand extreme environments, designed with fully integrated options to eliminate easily broken attachments in mission-critical scenarios, and include security, privacy and productivity settings.
The DT395GS tablet is designed for field applications with a high-accuracy GNSS module that is compatible with existing GIS software for mapping applications and brings together the advanced workflow for GIS data capture, accurate positioning and data transmission. The u-blox M8 GNSS module is capable of concurrent reception of GPS and GLONASS for up to 2-meter accuracy.
“Many businesses have adopted mobile tablets with the goal of increasing productivity by leveraging the versatile tablet form-factor,” said Daw Tsai, president of DT Research. “But companies within construction, field service, logistics, manufacturing and warehousing have found that consumer-grade tablets are too fragile for their environment — requiring costly repairs and replacements that introduce expensive downtime. Our new DT395 rugged tablets give vertical industries exactly what they need with high reliability and lower TCO (total cost of ownership) over the lifetime of the product.”
According to a VDC Research study, the average annual TCO of a ruggedized tablet is 22 percent lower than the average annual TCO of a non-rugged tablet. The study found average failure rates for non-rugged tablets is 15.2 percent compared to 6.9 percent for rugged tablets. Lost productivity, as a result of mobile device failure, was a leading contributor to higher TCO for non-rugged tablets. Mobile workers lost an average of 52-80 minutes of productivity when their mobile device failed. (Source: VDC Research, “Total Cost of Ownership Models for Mobile Computing and Wireless Platforms,” Third Edition.)
Unlike consumer-grade tablets, the DT395CR and DT395GS ruggedized tablets are designed to be used in a variety of indoor and outdoor environments with full HD anti-reflection outdoor viewable displays. The tablets are IP65 and MIL-STD-810G rated to withstand 4-foot drops and extreme temperatures (-4° F to 140° F), and resist water, dust and humidity.
“We tried iPads, but they were not suited for our environment,” said Marty Phillips, director of engineering at Murray Equipment, Inc. “Our customers do millions of dollars of fertilizer loading within an eight-week window in a broad range of weather conditions. If a remote control tablet is down for even an hour, it’s a significant revenue loss. We have used DT Research rugged tablets in our automated liquid-handling facilities across the U.S. for more than three years with no downtime or repair/replacement costs. The reliability of DT Research’s rugged tablets is unmatched.”
Both the DT395CR and DT395GS have an 8.9-inch display with 1920 x 1200 resolution and capacitive touch, and weigh 2.87 pounds. The tablets run on an Intel Atom Quad Core CPU with 4GB RAM running Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Enterprise OS.
Security, privacy and productivity settings
“Security, privacy and productivity are a growing concern in many organizations,” Helen Fanucci, GM of Americas Device IoT Experience, Microsoft. “We are pleased to see DT Research utilize the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise-grade security to support mission-critical rugged tablets for customers and deliver a safer device experience, which enhances productivity for a variety of mobile scenarios in manufacturing, field service, logistics and other industries.”
The DT395 tablets leverage advanced Windows 10 IoT Enterprise OS security including Device Guard, combining hardware and software security to lock down a device so that it can only run trusted applications. The DT395 also includes lock-down features to protect against malicious users while providing a custom-defined user experience.
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID can pose a security issue when using consumer-grade tablets within a business environment. DT Research DT395 rugged tablets can be purpose-built with a camera privacy mode and
preconfigured with Bluetooth, RFID and Wi-Fi disable functions. The DT395 rugged tablets can also eliminate access to internet or social media applications to address productivity challenges.
Customizable options
DT Research offers customizable options for the DT395CR and DT395GS including an optimized OS and BIOS. Customers can choose to have the options below fully-integrated.
3G WWAN or 4G LTE
2D Barcode Scanner
Class 1 Bluetooth (1000 feet)
Camera (5 Megapixel back camera)
GNSS Module (u-blox M8)
HF/RFID 13.56MHz reader
HDMI-in and Ethernet port
Six-pin push/pull connector for EIA/RS-232/485/422, USB port and Ethernet port
DT Research has released the DT395CR and DT395GS rugged tablets. While designed for field professionals, the tablets cost less than consumer-grade tablets over the lifetime of the product, DT Research said.
The DT395GS rugged tablet by DT Research.
Both DT395 tablets are highly durable to withstand extreme environments, designed with fully integrated options to eliminate easily broken attachments in mission-critical scenarios, and include security, privacy and productivity settings.
The DT395GS tablet is designed for field applications with a high-accuracy GNSS module that is compatible with existing GIS software for mapping applications and brings together the advanced workflow for GIS data capture, accurate positioning and data transmission. The u-blox M8 GNSS module is capable of concurrent reception of GPS and GLONASS for up to 2-meter accuracy.
“Many businesses have adopted mobile tablets with the goal of increasing productivity by leveraging the versatile tablet form-factor,” said Daw Tsai, president of DT Research. “But companies within construction, field service, logistics, manufacturing and warehousing have found that consumer-grade tablets are too fragile for their environment — requiring costly repairs and replacements that introduce expensive downtime. Our new DT395 rugged tablets give vertical industries exactly what they need with high reliability and lower TCO (total cost of ownership) over the lifetime of the product.”
According to a VDC Research study, the average annual TCO of a ruggedized tablet is 22 percent lower than the average annual TCO of a non-rugged tablet. The study found average failure rates for non-rugged tablets is 15.2 percent compared to 6.9 percent for rugged tablets. Lost productivity, as a result of mobile device failure, was a leading contributor to higher TCO for non-rugged tablets. Mobile workers lost an average of 52-80 minutes of productivity when their mobile device failed. (Source: VDC Research, “Total Cost of Ownership Models for Mobile Computing and Wireless Platforms,” Third Edition.)
Unlike consumer-grade tablets, the DT395CR and DT395GS ruggedized tablets are designed to be used in a variety of indoor and outdoor environments with full HD anti-reflection outdoor viewable displays. The tablets are IP65 and MIL-STD-810G rated to withstand 4-foot drops and extreme temperatures (-4° F to 140° F), and resist water, dust and humidity.
“We tried iPads, but they were not suited for our environment,” said Marty Phillips, director of engineering at Murray Equipment, Inc. “Our customers do millions of dollars of fertilizer loading within an eight-week window in a broad range of weather conditions. If a remote control tablet is down for even an hour, it’s a significant revenue loss. We have used DT Research rugged tablets in our automated liquid-handling facilities across the U.S. for more than three years with no downtime or repair/replacement costs. The reliability of DT Research’s rugged tablets is unmatched.”
Both the DT395CR and DT395GS have an 8.9-inch display with 1920 x 1200 resolution and capacitive touch, and weigh 2.87 pounds. The tablets run on an Intel Atom Quad Core CPU with 4GB RAM running Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Enterprise OS.
Security, privacy and productivity settings
“Security, privacy and productivity are a growing concern in many organizations,” Helen Fanucci, GM of Americas Device IoT Experience, Microsoft. “We are pleased to see DT Research utilize the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise-grade security to support mission-critical rugged tablets for customers and deliver a safer device experience, which enhances productivity for a variety of mobile scenarios in manufacturing, field service, logistics and other industries.”
The DT395 tablets leverage advanced Windows 10 IoT Enterprise OS security including Device Guard, combining hardware and software security to lock down a device so that it can only run trusted applications. The DT395 also includes lock-down features to protect against malicious users while providing a custom-defined user experience.
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID can pose a security issue when using consumer-grade tablets within a business environment. DT Research DT395 rugged tablets can be purpose-built with a camera privacy mode and
preconfigured with Bluetooth, RFID and Wi-Fi disable functions. The DT395 rugged tablets can also eliminate access to internet or social media applications to address productivity challenges.
Customizable options
DT Research offers customizable options for the DT395CR and DT395GS including an optimized OS and BIOS. Customers can choose to have the options below fully-integrated.
3G WWAN or 4G LTE
2D Barcode Scanner
Class 1 Bluetooth (1000 feet)
Camera (5 Megapixel back camera)
GNSS Module (u-blox M8)
HF/RFID 13.56MHz reader
HDMI-in and Ethernet port
Six-pin push/pull connector for EIA/RS-232/485/422, USB port and Ethernet port
u‑blox, a global leader in wireless and positioning modules and chips, today announced plans to launch modules supporting Category M1 (Cat M1) LTE networks, which will allow a larger number of devices to connect to the Internet of Things (IoT).
The first SARA‑R4 module developed by u‑blox will be available in Q4 2016 targeting mobile network operators in the United States market. With the recently launched SARA‑N2, the world’s first cellular NB‑IoT module, the new LTE Cat M1 complements u‑blox’s extensive product offering for the IoT.
Along with NB‑IoT, LTE Cat M1 is part of the new 3GPP Release 13 standard supporting low power wide area (LPWA) technologies in the licensed spectrum and is designed for IoT applications with low to medium data throughput rates, as well as devices that require long battery lifetimes.
Additionally, M1’s vehicular handover capability delivers the technology necessary to support vehicle, asset and people tracking. It also supports lower latency applications and a data rate of 375 kbps in half duplex mode and 1 mbps in full duplex mode.
The market focus for the LTE Cat M1 technology is extensive and will cover applications in many areas, such as the smart home, security systems, industrial monitoring and control, asset tracking, telematics, connected health, smart metering, smart cities, and wearables.
“u‑blox is a global leader in developing cellular modules designed for IoT applications,“ said Moti Tabulo, product manager of cellular at u‑blox. “We are excited to add LTE Cat M1 modules to our LPWA product portfolio. We will now be able to offer our customers both LTE Cat M1 and NB‑IoT modules.”
The SARA‑R4 modules follow u‑blox’s “nested design” philosophy to maintain form factor and software continuity. This allows customers to easily upgrade their products with each new generation of u‑blox wireless modules without having to change their PCB designs. Such easy migration maximizes investment return, simplifies logistics and drastically reduces time‑to‑market, u-blox said.
The first module out of the SARA‑R4 series will be available in Q4 2016.
U-blox has released its tiny EVA-M8Q high-sensitivity GNSS module in a 7 millimeter by 7 millimeter package. EVA-M8Q supports GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo, the company said in a news release.
The EVA-M8Q completes the company’s lineup of receivers in the miniature and EVA form-factor package.
The EVA-M8Q is TCXO-based and is optimized to provide the highest acquisition and tracking sensitivity, the company says, making it suitable for use with small antennas either in covert applications such as asset tracking and stolen vehicle recovery, or in portable devices; the previously announced EVA-M8M is better suited to cost-sensitive systems.
“The key differentiator of the EVA-M8Q to the other cost effective EVA variants is the sensitivity,” says Stéphane Vincent, product strategy director, positioning, u-blox. “This, along with the accuracy provided by concurrent reception of three GNSS constellations, enables an end-system and its antennas to be easily hidden within a vehicle or other high-value asset that need to be tracked.”
The ease of manufacturing offered by the Quad Flat No-leads (QFN)-like package suits requirements for medium- to high-volume production. While the highly integrated module of the EVA-M8 series allows OEMs to achieve a faster time-to-market.
EVA-M8 series are the smallest u-blox modules featuring GPS, BeiDou, Galileo and GLONASS reception. Three out of the four GNSS constellations can be received concurrently, which leads to high positioning accuracy. The series also features anti-spoofing and anti-jamming technology to provide superior security and integrity protection.
Samples of the EVA-M8Q are available now. The modules will be in full production in Q4 2016.
Features
Complete GNSS solution in 7 millimeter by 7 millimeter package.
Sensitivity — ideal for small or covert installations.
High accuracy from three concurrent GNSS.
Highly integrated module leads to faster time-to-market.
Chaminda Basnayake, Principal Engineer, V2X Systems, Renesas Electronics
In the basic V2X concept of operation, everybody will be talking to each other, will be aware of each other. Any car will be broadcasting BSMs, pedestrian or personal devices will be broadcasting an equivalent message, called personal safety messages (PSM), and then all the control devices like traffic control will broadcast signal-based timing information, SPAT messages, intersection maps and GPS correction data.
The expectation in the system design is that all vehicles will provide position information and location accuracy, and the vehicle should be able to get this from itself and from others.
The idea is that every vehicle should be able to relatively position everyone else, and then with the onboard device, the vehicle should be able to position itself with respect to the roadway.
A lot of applications are out there. A good source of further information on these is put together by the Connected Vehicle Reference Implementation Architecture, a U.S. Department of Transportation initiative.
Connected Car Gateway for applications such as emergency calling, telematics, infotainment data distribution and usage-based insurance. (Image: u-blox)
John Kenney, Director and Principal Researcher, Network Division, Toyota InfoTechnology Center
A couple of issues are hot today with regard to spectrum and how we’re going to use it: what kinds of technology to use to support V2X, in the United States and around the world, and also whether that spectrum can be shared by other technologies for other purposes.
V2X is an inherently ad hoc network, and that makes evolution across generations a much more challenging task than we are used to seeing in the cellular environment.
Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) technology is now mature, and it’s entering the deployment phase. The cellular V2X technology that’s in the initial standardization is interesting; it offers benefits by complementing DSRC, but we don’t want to see it positioned as a competitor. The auto industry wants to remove uncertainty (regarding spectrum sharing) but only in a way that does not threaten DSRC’s safety-of-life mission.
Nikolaos Papadopoulos, President, u-blox America
The adjacent figure shows an in-vehicle module for emergency calling, other positioning applications and infotainment. The blue boxes show the components that we supply: the GNSS with three-dimensional dead reckoning, and in the future with lane-level accuracy, the TOBY 4000 with the customer application, as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and near-field communications.
I have shown examples in this webinar where we can clearly identify lane changes with a combination of GNSS technologies.
We very much encourage both Tier Ones and OEMs to keep the cellular technology, the short-range communication technology, and the GNSS positioning technology separate. The advances in GNSS and positioning for autonomous vehicles are truly extraordinary, and can only be done in the separate GNSS technology.
How to put the car on a nap? Positioning technology options. (Image: Renesas Electronics)
Roger Berg, Vice President, Wireless Technologies, DENSO North American R&D Laboratories
The video example that I showed here, of advance warning of a braking car hidden from your line of sight ahead of you, used a Toyota vehicle, a u-blox positional element, and a Renesas V2V component.
We’ve learned through experience that one company can’t do it all. This is an ecosystem that requires connectivity and cooperation. No longer is a vehicle its own entity; it does not operate separate from infrastructure and other road users. And finally, we can’t necessarily predict how connected and automated drivers interact with so-called regular vehicles, those controlled by human drivers. It’s going to take a lot of collaboration between industry, academia and government to be effective.
KIWI PLUS, a Korean software-development company, has launched a new children’s smartwatch developed in collaboration with u-blox.
LINE Kids Watch is a tiny and colorful wearable with LINE emojis functioning as an Android-based smartwatch and officially distributed by KT Corporation. It enables precise tracking of the whereabouts of children, while also offering educational and interactive content.
LINE Kids Watch uses KIWI PLUS’ own Internet of Things (IoT) platform for wearables, KIWI Edge. Designed with a simple LCD screen for one-touch calling, it also provides real-time accurate location tracking and convenient safety zone setting. An emergency notification can easily be initiated by the child and text messages are sent by speaking into a microphone. Other features include an education quiz and a Cashbee NFC money pocket function.
“We wanted to offer accurate tracking combined with high quality cellular communication, and u-blox has already demonstrated with leading brands of children’s watches its unique combination of GNSS positioning and wireless communication technologies. And considering the small size, low power consumption and powerful location accuracy of its products as well as the speed with which they helped us solved issues, u‑blox was the right choice,” explained Sangwon Seo, CEO of KIWI PLUS.
The u-blox cellular module SARA-U270 and u-blox 7 GNSS chip UBX-G7020-KT are embedded in the smartwatch. The SARA-U270 UMTS/HSPA module provides efficient and cost-effective high-speed mobile connectivity in an ultra-small LGA form factor.
The high performance UBX-G7020 multi-GNSS chip supports GPS, GLONASS, QZSS and SBAS and delivers exceptional sensitivity and acquisition times. It has ultra low-power consumption and a very small solution footprint of 30 square millimeters.
“It was very exciting to collaborate with KIWI PLUS, as we at u-blox are committed to support our customers by combining technologies for reliable solutions,” explains Shone Kim, Country Manager of u-blox Korea. “We foresee further collaboration with KIWI PLUS in the future, using our LTE technology.”
Wearables are small portable devices that support our daily life, and deliver on-the-spot services thanks to their wireless connectivity and positioning capability. Low power technologies offer a long battery life, and with outstanding radio capabilities, a robust user experience. The market for this type of high technology integration is growing strongly, so price levels are quickly becoming competitive.
U‑blox components are at the core of two new GNSS golf products. The golf rangefinder wearables were launched by Voice Caddie, an international brand of rangefinders and trackers based in South Korea.
