Category: Mobile

  • How Millimeter Wave Will Drive The Next Wave Of Touchless Transactions

    The way we communicate with the world continues to change. Touch-based interfaces grew exponentially from 2008 to 2019. All this changed with the emergence of a pandemic in 2020. The demand for touchless technologies skyrocketed across all businesses as safety considerations forced companies to rethink customer and employee interactions.

    In the consumer landscape, individuals were already growing accustomed to conversational interfaces such as Alexa, Google and Apple’s Siri. Voice interfaces are also one way to achieve touchless enterprise use cases, such as starting a video conference. However, voice is limited to only certain types of interactions and environments. Meanwhile, cameras support creating touchless applications, but many companies worry about potential privacy concerns with facial recognition.

    As a result, organizations across the globe are enabling touchless solutions with a wide range of existing radio technologies, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Near Field Communications NFC and Bluetooth, to fulfill the need for touchless solutions. Businesses have added touchless solutions that range from kiosks to conference rooms to curbside delivery. For example, organizations use NFC for mobile payments, QR codes for restaurant menus and Bluetooth beacons for proximity. In 2020, a prominent US automaker created a social distancing solution that used a BLE system to deliver a social proximity alarm to a smartwatch, alerting workers if they are too close to another person in the facility.

    Today’s wireless options enable touchless use cases but have limitations

    While these solutions created the foundation of today’s touchless environments, it’s clear that these solutions weren’t designed nor optimized for creating a touchless world for health and safety. For example, RFID was primarily designed for asset tracking, identification of animals, and proximity cards such as IDs. However, RFID’s not the right solution to support a touchless interaction use case, such as navigating and selecting options on a kiosk. A gesture recognition system is more appropriate for use cases that require making a selection.

    Certain wireless technologies also require the user to have an intelligent device with connectivity. NFC, widely used for contactless payments today, requires a person to have a smartphone and application designed to use NFC. This radio technology is also limited in the types of use cases it can provide because the user must be within a 10 cm proximity to a reader to take any action. Meanwhile, Bluetooth’s original design remit focused on creating technology for wireless headsets. Perhaps the biggest issue with using any of these technologies is that they were all designed with communication in mind.

    Let’s take an example of where a company wants to enable touchless access to a building.  Using Bluetooth access control or RFID, a company can allow touchless sign-in or entry into a facility for employees. However, it can’t help an individual select a destination in the elevator without touching a button.

    Research and standards work will provide advanced touchless options 

    Realizing the existing constraints of today’s touchless wireless solutions, technology researchers are developing solutions specifically designed to support the unique requirements of touchless use cases. While commonly associated with 5G networks, millimeter-wave technology possesses numerous properties that make it ideal for supporting touchless interactions. Unlike “conventional” frequency bands used by broadcasting systems and Bluetooth, the millimeter-wave band offers the wide bandwidth necessary to support high-speed transfer rates for communication applications and the more precise resolution required by sensing applications.

    Advances in computing and manufacturing will allow technology companies to develop extremely compact chips with many antennas. With current manufacturing, a company can place between 4 to 256 antennas on a single chip. These densely packed components enable narrow transmit and receive beams in many directions, improving sensing information from multiple angles and directions. Researchers are also designing technology to consume less power within a given range.

    Millimeter-wave uses the same operating principles as radar for proximity and movement detection.  By using increased bandwidth, the system offers greater resolution for improving detection accuracy. The higher resolution makes it suitable for 3D sensing of finger motions, hand swiping, gestures and even vital sign monitoring. Millimeter-wave can improve spatial accuracy over a broader range of distances enabling multiple use cases such as presence detection, counting the people in a room, and defining the proximity of people within a specific area. For example, millimeter-wave technology can be used for new close proximity use cases such as vital sign monitoring and gesture recognition for truck drivers ( if the driver gets within 5 cm of the sensor.)  In a healthcare scenario, it could provide heart rate monitoring and touch-free interfaces for clinicians.

    Often, user anonymity is preferred to preserve privacy and comfort. Unlike mobile devices and facial recognition, touchless technologies provide the additional benefit of retaining anonymity by recognizing the presence or gestures of an individual without explicitly identifying them. Additionally, cameras don’t work well in the dark, whereas millimeter-wave would work in all situations

    However, design work still needs to be completed to overcome the challenges of traditional millimeter-wave technologies used in sensing, such as FMCW. For example, FMCW systems do not typically incorporate coexistence. As a result, their performance degrades in dense deployment scenarios or situations where multiple systems operate at the same frequency band. Researchers are working within standards bodies such as the 802.11 working group to develop features such as WLAN sensing to address these challenges. It’s an amendment to the standard that seeks that seeks to define standardized waveforms and protocols that would enable 802.11 technology to better support sensing applications.

    By being a standardized technology, 802.11-based sensing can become more widely available and lower cost than other sensing technologies.  802.11-based sensing also has other technical advantages over other sensing technologies. It incorporates robust coexistence mechanisms and enables communications and sensing applications to be supported with the same chip. The outcome should produce a standard that enables radar-like applications in various bands such as 2.4, 5, 6 and 60 GHz bands, and that can make use of access points and clients alike to address a broader set of use cases.

    The road ahead

    It’s difficult to predict the future and anticipate what’s coming next, but it’s clear that touchless technologies of all kinds, from cameras to RF solutions, will be part of that future. Regardless of the differences between wireless technologies, the combined benefits of improved safety and convenience mean touchless modes will become a standard offering across industries. Companies will continue to use a mix of a suite of wireless technologies to deliver ubiquitous touchless access. Still, they will seek out technologies designed with touchless use cases in mind. Research on crafting millimeter wave solutions for touchless systems promises to provide many performance benefits. As the touchless trend continues to surge, it’s a great time to explore touchless technology options and build a strategy for the future.

    Looking for more information, check out these:

    A. Two standards body efforts.

    1. https://beyondstandards.ieee.org/ieee-802-11bf-aims-to-enable-a-new-application-of-wlan-technology-wlan-sensing/
    2. https://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/tgbf_update.htm

    B. The Wireless Broadband Alliance at https://wballiance.com/resource/wi-fi-sensing/

    C. This Intel Touchless Technologies White Paperhttps://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/pdf/the-need-for-enabling-touchless-technologies-whitepaper.pdf

  • Samsung Expands A Series Lineup In Bid To Grab MidTier Market As Competition Heats Up

    Samsung has offered mid-tier and lower-end smartphones globally for years. However, there was never a substantial mid-tier smartphone push from Samsung in the U.S. market. All of that changed in April as Samsung introduced an expanded line up of A-series smartphones. There are six versions in the new A-series lineup with prices that range from $109.99 to $599.99.

    The 2020 Galaxy A series focuses on offering the smartphone essentials at a variety of reasonable price points. For example, each A series device offers a multi-lens camera system with resolutions that a range of 12 to 64 megapixels. Cameras are one of the most important buying criteria for consumers. One of the exciting things is that many camera features found in its flagship smartphones such as multiple lenses, super steady feature and 4K video filming can found within the lineup. Additionally, the screens range in size from a 5.7in HD+ Infinity V display to a 6.7-inch Full HD+ Infinity-O AMOLED display. There is also a range of battery, RAM and expandable storage options.

    5G for all

    The real surprises in the lineup were the Galaxy A51 5G and A71 5G smartphones. Both of these products introduce 5G at a far more affordable price point. The A51 5G at $499.99 meets the price point of other mid-tier 5G smartphones, such as Motorola’s Moto Z4. Meanwhile, the Galaxy 71 5G sports a 6.7″ FHD+ Super AMOLED Plus Infinity-O display and a 64MP quad-camera system for $599.99. Samsung’s goal is obviously to take 5G mainstream. Of course, there are nuances that consumers must be aware of in 5G. Given the smartphone’s lower price point, it wasn’t possible to put every type of 5G radio into a phone. As a result, if a consumer purchases a 5G phone for one operator’s network, they may not be able to use the same smartphone if the consumer switches to another carrier’s network.

    Samsung’s move is a sign of changing times.

    Consumers are holding on to smartphones longer, up to 28 months. It’s also becoming increasingly tricky for smartphone vendors to grow share as the premium smartphone segment prices topped $1,000. Segmentation becomes increasingly important in a mature smartphone market. It’s critical for Samsung to create a product segmentation strategy that allows consumers to make the right tradeoffs between price and desired features. Given the time it takes to create and manufacture a smartphone, it’s clear that Samsung forecasted an emerging need for a mid-tier smartphone product series many months ago.

    Smartphones remain an essential purchase for many consumers. With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc with the global economy, there’s never been a better time to introduce a set of lower-cost smartphone options. While consumers may aspire to purchase a flagship smartphone, their budget may demand a mid-tier phone. The expansion of the A series showcases how Samsung plans to address this market, particularly during a difficult time.

    At this point, you may be asking why you’d need to upgrade to a more premium product. Flagship devices have notable differences such as processors that run A.I. models and of course, foldable materials. There’s a right smartphone, for the right time, and the right buyer. There will always be a premium buyer. What Samsung needs is the ability to capture a wide swath of buyers.

    The U.S. mid-tier market was scant and ill-defined. Last year’s success of the Samsung A50 proved that there is a market for a mid-tier device and that it doesn’t necessarily cannibalize the flagship smartphones. While other smartphone vendors may offer a cheaper midtier product, not everyone is going to have a quality line up. The great news about the A series launch is that consumers shouldn’t feel they have to purchase a 2-year-old model to get something that’s affordable.

    Samsung’s timing is right but Apple swooped in

    As noted above, Samsung’s timing is perfect for offering a range of middle-tier smartphones without compromises. However, it’s not the only company with that idea. The question remains will other low-cost products give Samsung a run for their money? Or will it just be Apple who swoops in with a high-quality competing product? Apple launched the new budget iPhone SE merely days after Samsung’s launch, offering a compelling product in the space However, it’s only one model. While Apple’s product will successful, it’s unclear what impact that will have on Samsung’s sales. No matter what happens, mid-tier smartphones are a win for the consumer.

    This is an updated version of a post contributed to Forbes.com, you can read more of my pieces here.