What could be more common than a light bulb?
Well, the Wi-Fi chipset, for starters. And Waterloo-based Cognitive Systems Corp. has its sights set on the three billion of them shipped worldwide each year as potential vehicles for its motion-sensing technology.
For now, the company is focusing on the North American market for Wi-Fi routers, 150 million of which are likely to ship next year. To that end, Cognitive announced on Wednesday that its software will be embedded in Stanley Black and Decker’s new home Wi-Fi router, called Omni, a security-focused consumer device set to go on sale next summer.
Routers equipped with Cognitive’s software, called Aura, essentially turn every Wi-Fi-connected device in your home into a motion detector, since wireless signals are disturbed whenever something moves through them. For Cognitive, the Stanley Black and Decker deal is an important step toward addressing an already huge and ever-growing market, Cognitive CEO and co-founder Taj Manku told Communitech News.
“The number is very large,” Manku said of Wi-Fi chipsets, which, for comparison, now outsell light bulbs by 20 per cent. “Eventually we do want to get to the point where we become the de facto standard for Wi-Fi chipsets, where people would implement (our software) directly onto their platforms.”
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