Silicon Labs Opens Connectivity Lab in Boston for Real-World Matter Testing

Silicon Labs announced the opening of the new Silicon Labs Connectivity Lab in their Boston facility. The Connectivity Lab simulates a modern Smart Home, with a range of connected devices, applications, ecosystems, and networks. It offers developers an ideal environment to test their Matter prototypes, operating within real-world scenarios across a variety of protocols and device brands.

The ISE 2023 show in Barcelona saw the OCA Alliance bring forward several new developments and announcements that will continue to push the horizons of the AES70 control standard. During the show, presentations, demonstrations, and new members to the trade association showcased current and future technologies and tools that will further broaden the Open Control Architecture (OCA) Ecosystem.

NXP Semiconductors announced the IW612, the industry’s first secure tri-radio device to support the Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and 802.15.4 (Zigbee, Thread, Z-Wave, Matter) protocols. Part of NXP’s new family of tri-radio products, the new device enables seamless, secure connectivity for smart home, automotive and industrial use cases. The single SoC enables simultaneous transmit and receive for higher performance in smart solutions, and supports Matter, the new interoperable, secure connectivity standard for the smart home.

German connectivity specialists DirectOut have become the latest Ravenna OEM solutions vendor with the release of their new RAV2 high performance network audio module for integration into third party products. The new module also forms the Ravenna AoIP network core of DirectOut’s recently released PRODIGY Series of multifunction audio processors and converters for pro audio, broadcast, installation and studio applications.

During my time at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2019 show, I looked closely at how companies are dealing with the transition to IP networks, how prevalent some proprietary technologies still are in commercial installation and AV in particular (e.g., HDBaseT), and how manufacturers are introducing new products and concepts to integrate those networked systems, in particular those protocols that support AES67 audio and the latest SMPTE ST-2110 suite of standards in general.