Cypress Semiconductor announced on Wednesday that it has expanded its portfolio of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with the addition of Cirrent, provider of software and cloud services for consumer Wi-Fi products. IoT companies use Cirrent’s software and cloud services to make their products easier to use, more reliable, and more secure.
Cirrent makes it easy for manufacturers to transform the out-of-box experience through ZipKey and the support of the broader Cirrent ecosystem. Through partnerships with large Internet service providers such as Comcast Cable, Cirrent has established a network of ZipKey hotspots that now cover more than 120 million homes.
“Cirrent helps users bring their IoT products online quickly and keep them connected, solving two of the biggest barriers to the broader proliferation of IoT products,” said Hassane El-Khoury, Cypress’ president and CEO. “Providing valuable and differentiated software is a core part of Cypress’ strategy. The addition of Cirrent strengthens our position to expand our software services revenue by bringing on their talented team of engineers, building on their scalable cloud platform, and embracing their relationships with the large internet-service providers and leading IoT product companies.”
As more and more homes become smart and more devices get connected to the home’s Wi-Fi network, the user experience needs to be intuitive and seamless. Cirrent’s software allows IoT products to connect to a customer’s home network and stay connected, providing an outstanding user experience and significant return on investment to product manufacturers by reducing support costs and product returns. Cirrent’s software lets users set up products without typing in passwords and ensures products stay connected even when network names and passwords are changed.
As more companies develop business models and revenue streams enabled by connectivity, the increase in the connection rate from using Cirrent’s solution directly creates business value for customers.
Cirrent’s ZipKey Wi-Fi Onboarding and IoT Network Intelligence solutions are available for companies making connected products with a wide variety of Wi-Fi chips and operating systems.
“We started Cirrent to improve the Wi-Fi experience for connected products, and with partners like Comcast and Electrolux, we’ve built momentum towards achieving this vision,” stated Rob Conant, the founder of Cirrent and its general manager. “Joining Cypress through an acquisition back in August was the next step on our mission to bring these capabilities to more products across more markets. Cypress shares our desire to continually improve the end-user experience and has decades of experience making technology simple and mainstream.”
“Cirrent raises the bar on Wi-Fi user experience for connected products. Adding Cirrent technology to automate Wi-Fi provisioning improves both the customer experience and the security of all the Wi-Fi products in the home, which benefits both network operators and consumers,” said Arsham Hatambeiki, senior vice president of product and technology at Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI).
“Half of the consumers experience problems when setting up smart home products,” said Tom Kerber, Senior Director, IoT Strategy, at Parks Associates. “Difficulty connecting devices to the internet has remained the leading issue facing consumers over the past three years. Every manufacturer must provide solutions that eliminate these problems for consumers.”
In October, Cypress expanded its collaboration with Arm to enable secure, easy-to-use management of Internet of Things (IoT) edge nodes based on Cypress’ compute and connectivity hardware. The solution integrates the Arm Pelion IoT Platform with Cypress’ ultra-low power, dual-core PSoC 6 microcontrollers (MCUs) and CYW4343W Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo radios for robust wireless connectivity.
PSoC 6 provides Arm v7-M hardware-based security that adheres to the highest level of device protection defined by the Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA).
PSoC 6 is a low power, flexible MCU with built-in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless connectivity and integrated hardware-based security in a single device. The PSoC 6 architecture is built on ultra-low-power 40-nm process technology, and the MCUs feature low-power design techniques to extend battery life up to a full week for wearables.
