The wireless audio transmission technology developed by Summit Wireless Technologies has made WiSA into a success story, engaging with leading consumer electronics companies, technology providers, retailers, and ecosystem partners to create a wireless home theater experience that everyone can enjoy.
In the last two years, Summit has been working in two fronts to expand its multichannel wireless audio technology. From one side, expanding the proven WiSA eight-channel wireless audio system to support Dolby Atmos and other immersive audio formats, creating a new front to promote spatial, wireless sound technology for smart devices and next-generation home entertainment systems marketed under the WiSA brand.
The current Summit Pro (WiSA) module transmits and receives up to 8 channels of uncompressed 24-bit 48/96kHz sound over a dedicated wireless network working on the more reliable U-NII 5GHz spectrum, with a unique signal latency of just 5.2 milliseconds and 1 microsecond channel synchronization. This allows expansion to immersive configurations by supporting up to 12 speakers connected simultaneously (adding height speakers to the standard surround configurations). No other wireless audio technology currently in the market allows this level of performance and convenience for home environments.
On the second front, the consumer electronics market has been demanding increasingly more affordable approaches for convenient wireless expansions of TV sound and soundbars. This was the reason why Summit created its Discovery module, supporting up to four channels of uncompressed 16-bit/48kHz audio over a standard Wi-Fi network. WiSA Discovery-certified components connect seamlessly and allow all-in-one home theater systems and soundbar system expansion. The major trade-off being the higher signal latency of 40 milliseconds (30 milliseconds transport latency), and 20 microseconds channel synchronization. But with this more affordable alternative, Summit is able to offer an alternative to competitive wireless audio technologies that are having a resurgence (e.g. DTS Play-Fi).
Yet, the superior WiSA technology on 5GHz needs to expand to meet the requirements of the growing home-theater market, demanding support for Dolby Atmos content. The decision to reach out to Realtek Semiconductor - a world-leading IC provider that designs and develops a wide range of devices for this type of applications - is certainly an important part of this strategy. Within the Realtek chipset portfolio, the "IoT" (these companies love buzzwords, even if sometimes, the wrong ones) range meets the requirements when combined with Summit's Spatial Audio Software. WiSA and Realtek expect samples to be available in 2022.
"Realtek looks for strong industry partners to bring increased functionality to our line of IoT audio and video chips. Spatial audio is a new and exciting market and we are happy to partner with WiSA and the engineers at Summit to bring this new immersive audio experience to our customers' products,” says K.Y. Yen, President of Realtek.
"In order to bring our 10 years’ of experience in immersive audio solutions to the mainstream markets, we needed an established semiconductor partner whose IoT Wi-Fi chip roadmap aligned with our strategic plan. Realtek fit the bill. With their strong lineup of audio and video chips, and their long list of tier one consumer electronics customers, there is no better partner to bring WiSA’s spatial audio capabilities to the masses,” adds Brett Moyer, chairman of WiSA, LLC and CEO of Summit Wireless Technologies.
During CES 2022, WiSA confirmed that its sound module was lately integrated into TCL’s new flagship X925 Pro 8K Mini-LED Starlight Smart Screen, the most recent sign of growing support from TV manufacturers to the WiSA Association technology. "Consumers want the highest-quality immersive audio experience possible," said Tony Ostrom, president of WiSA. "This can only happen with external speakers. Traditionally, this meant a dedicated AVR and messy speaker wires. By integrating WiSA’s immersive sound module into the X925 Pro TV, TCL has eliminated the need for external componentry and offers cinema-quality sound with the ease and elegance of a wireless connection."
www.realtek.com
www.summitwireless.com
www.wisatechnologies.com
