According to market research firm IDC, smart home devices are forecasted to grow to more than 1.4 billion units by 2024. To further the proliferation of smart home devices, Aspinity has unveiled an Acoustic Event Detection Kit (EVK1) for battery-operated home devices that are always on.
The EVK1 is for smart home devices and features acoustic triggers such as window glass breaks, voice or other acoustic events. The kit includes Aspinity’s analogML core, a fully analog machine learning processor that promotes system power efficiency by identifying specific acoustic events prior to data digitization. The kit also includes event detection algorithms and Infineon’s Xensiv IM73A135 high-performance, low-power analog microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone.
Acoustic event detection devices typically are power-inefficient because they monitor the environment in a home continuously and immediately digitize all microphone data for analysis. When a window breaks, a sensor uses digital analysis of 100% of the ambient sound data to detect a trigger that rarely occurs. The EVK1 is a power saving alternative using the analogML core to detect acoustic events at the start of a signal chain. While the microphone data are still analog, the downstream digital system can remain in an ultra-low power sleep mode until an event is detected.
Aspinity said this approach allows designers to build acoustic event detection devices with batteries that last for years, instead of months, on a single charge.
“Stoked by demand for smarter real-time monitoring of potential dangers in the home, the market for acoustic event detection in battery-powered smart home devices is exploding,” said Tom Doyle, founder and CEO, Aspinity. “Such devices help people feel safer and more secure, whether they’re home or away, which is why it’s so important to keep them up and running for extended periods. Our EVK1 makes it easy to develop small devices that can very accurately detect window glass break and run for years, so you can go on vacation knowing that your home will be protected while you’re away — and you’ll be spared those annoying phone calls on false alarms triggered by other loud sounds in the neighborhood.”
