CSR and Lenovo Deliver World’s First Fully Featured Bluetooth® Smart Television Remote Control

Aug. 27, 2014 - PRLog -- San Jose, California and Cambridge, UK –August 27, 2014 – CSR plc (http://www.csr.com/) (LSE: CSR; NASDAQ- CSRE) today announces that it has partnered with Lenovo to make its new S9 and S52 Smart TVs (http://tv.lenovo.com.cn/S9/index.html), the world’s first TVs with fully featured Bluetooth Smart remote controls. The remotes, which are currently available in China, are not only low power but also have increased responsiveness, and make controlling TV content a much more user-friendly experience.

Advancing the forms of control in line with advances in television content, the remote, powered by the CSR1011™ (http://www.csr.com/products/csr101x-product-family), part of the CSR µEnergy® range (http://www.csr.com/products/technology/low-energy), and CSR8510™ platforms, enables consumers to take advantage of voice control, as well as easily adding motion navigation and gesture recognition functionality. The end-to-end solution allows users to more easily navigate content, browse the web and play games on their Lenovo Smart TVs.

“CSR’s flexible Bluetooth Smart platforms ensure our customers can interact with their TVs in new and improved ways such as via voice recognition or gesture communication,” said Qi Wei, Executive Director, R&D, Smart TV BU at Lenovo. “CSR’s end-to-end solution was easy to integrate and made our journey to market faster. It also offers the functionality that a modern smart TV remote demands and performs better in both responsiveness and current consumption than other more power-hungry technologies such as Wi-Fi®.”

The CSR Smart Remote platform enables the remote to ‘wake up’ and reconnect to the TV upon a key-press, an important function with increasingly stringent demands on standby current consumption. Battery life in smart remotes is compared using a standard set of usage scenarios, such as number of button presses and amount of time dedicated to both gesture and voice control. In all of these usage scenarios, the low current consumption afforded Bluetooth Smart means that battery life is multiple times longer than remote controls based on comparable technologies. In addition, the technology allows Air Mouse and Voice over Bluetooth Smart functionality to perform at very high levels of responsiveness.

“Smart TVs are changing the way viewers interact with and manage content on their televisions and are a fast growing market with tremendous growth potential. However, until now, traditional forms of control have failed to keep up with the rapid pace of content evolution,” said Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President, Business Group at CSR. “CSR is delighted to work closely with Lenovo on this superb Ultra High Definition TV. We are further differentiating their products by creating an exciting new user experience via a smart remote control that takes full advantage of the benefits of the CSR Smart Remote platform.”

Features of the remote enabled by CSR’s Bluetooth Smart Remote solution include:

•       Hardware Key Scanning

•       Low current (<30uA when connected)

•       Voice over Bluetooth Smart with hardware link controller for robust 16kHz audio

•       Gyroscope / Accelerometer support for motion or gesture based navigation

•       Low-power host-wakeup to aid Energy Star compliance (no infra-red transceiver required)

•       Auto-pairing (for production line use and for out-of-box experience)

For more information on developing remote controls using the CSR µEnergy platform, please see our CSR µEnergy® Remote Control Development kit (http://csr.com/products/csr-energy-remote-control-develop...).

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About CSR

At CSR we push every boundary™ to solve challenges and deliver innovations that help customers differentiate and win in the fast-evolving consumer electronics market. Our technologists are improving people’s lifestyles and unlocking the true potential of seamless connectivity and the Internet of Things by developing and integrating silicon, software and services for customers in Voice & Music, Connectivity and Bluetooth® Smart, Automotive Infotainment, Document Imaging and Location. For more information, visit www.csr.com, our blog (http://www.csr.com/blog/), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/CSRplc), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/CSR/191038434253534?ref=hl) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/CSR_plc). For more information on aptX®, the audio codec that has revolutionized the wireless listening experience, visit www.aptx.com

CAUTIONARY NOTE ON Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements (including statements concerning plans and objectives of management for future operations or performance, or assumptions related thereto) that are not historical facts and constitute ‘forward looking statements’ within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 in relation to CSR’s Bluetooth® product solutions, and their performance characteristics in consumer electronic products, including the Lenovo S9 and S52 Smart TVs, and other future events and their potential effects on CSR. These forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as ‘will,’ ‘can deliver,’ offers', 'allows', 'to enhance,’ ‘enables,’ 'designed to' and other similar expressions regarding the performance characteristics of CSR’s Bluetooth® product solutions, and their performance characteristics in consumer electronics products, including the Lenovo S9 and S52 Smart TVs, and their potential effects on CSR. Any future release of CSR’s Bluetooth® product solutions or consumer electronics products containing such technology, related products or modifications to such products’ capability, functionality or features are subject to ongoing evaluation by CSR and its customers, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by CSR or its customers and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. Such forward-looking statements represent the current expectations and beliefs of management of CSR, and are based upon numerous assumptions regarding CSR’s business strategies and the environment in which CSR will operate and therefore involve a number of known and unknown risks, contingencies, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of CSR, including, but not limited to, those detailed from time to time in CSR’s periodic reports (whether under the caption Risk Factors or Forward Looking Statements or elsewhere), which are available at the SEC’s web site http://www.sec.gov. Each forward looking statement speaks only as of the date hereof. CSR does not undertake to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements contained herein, otherwise than required by law.

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