Freescale Semiconductor has been named a 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree for its Wearable Reference Platform (WaRP). WaRP is a community-based, Internet of Things platform offering designers unique product development flexibility in the quickly evolving consumer wearables market. It encourages design creativity by addressing key development challenges such as battery life, miniaturization, cost and usability.
Announced last night in New York City at the 2015 International CES Unveiled New York, the CES Innovation Awards is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the trade media, to recognize cutting-edge consumer electronics products across 28 product categories.
An honoree in the Embedded Technologies category, WaRP is a flexible platform built on a hybrid architecture that enables systems designers to move from prototype to product quickly and easily for a broad range of fitness, healthcare and infotainment wearables. The system-level development kit supports embedded wireless charging, incorporates Freescale processors and sensors, and comes with open-source software, a battery and a touchscreen LCD module. WaRP is a result of collaboration among Freescale, CircuitCo, Kynetics and Revolution Robotics.
“We are proud to be among the chosen CES Innovation Honorees, and look forward to seeing many new, imaginative wearable products made possible by the WaRP platform,” said Sujata Neidig, consumer market business development manager for Freescale. “We also want to congratulate our customer and fellow awardee AMPL Labs for the creative use of Freescale technology they’ve packed into their SmartBackpack, which is a great example of adding intelligence to everyday items.”
Freescale customer AMPL Labs was named a 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree in the Portable Power and Computer Accessories categories. The company’s SmartBackpack provides connected, on-the-go consumers with a versatile portable charging system, advanced protection of electronics carried in the bag, and wireless connectivity with mobile devices.
Freescale’s Kinetis KL26 microcontroller enabled AMPL Labs to design the backpack’s intelligence, which monitors battery levels, controls power flow for charging devices and communicates with mobile devices using Bluetooth LE. The backpack also utilizes several Freescale sensors, including an accelerometer and pressure sensors. The Freescale Freedom Development Platform (FRDM-KL26Z) enabled AMPL Labs to prototype quickly and efficiently.
“We are honored to win this prestigious CES award and to highlight the innovative ways we are using Freescale chips, technology and tools to make common, everyday things smarter,” said Michael Patton, CEO of AMPL Labs.