Wolfson selected by HelloSoft for the world’s lowest power Android VoIP phone reference design

Incorporating Wolfson’s world-leading WM8352 power management and audio solution, together with HelloSoft’s ground-breaking HS100 IP Convergence Processor, the reference design provides up to an outstanding 15 hours of talk time and 200 hours of standby time, which HelloSoft state is among the world’s lowest power wireless devices. The reference design is available as a turn-key VoIP over WiFi low cost phone reference design and also as a 4G wireless phone, and provides approximately 3 to 5 times longer battery life than other wireless VoIP solutions on the market.

While the solution is provided as a WiFi phone reference design, it can equally be incorporated into a wide range of WiFi-enabled consumer devices including mobile phones, digital photo frames, wireless remote controls and wireless audio speakers.

Part of Wolfson’s successful family of world-leading power management solutions, the WM8352 delivers high performance audio, extended battery life and reduced system cost for portable consumer electronics devices.

Dr Jess Brown, Wolfson’s Product Line Manager for Power Management, said: “We are delighted to integrate our world-leading WM8352 power management and audio solution into HelloSoft’s wireless VoIP reference design, which delivers exceptional performance at a competitive cost.

“The prevalence of WiFi is driving a new category of low power consumer devices which talk to both people and other connected devices. As a result, VoIP is now moving rapidly into all kinds of wireless devices and Wolfson’s AudioPlus solutions bring world-class power and audio performance to these wireless VoIP and audio devices.

“This wireless VoIP phone reference design combines Wolfson’s audio and power management technology with HelloSoft’s Ultra Low Power SmartWLAN™ IP, as well as the world’s leading VoIP and convergence software, to provide an ideal starting point to design these types of devices.”

Allan Johnson, HelloSoft’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development says: “This design is a complete state-of-the-art WiFi phone reference design available with Android or Linux and all software for both the enterprise and consumer markets, including HelloSoft’s award winning VoIP and Convergence software. Our criteria for this reference design was to provide ultra-low power in-built WiFi, ultra-low power high quality audio and very low BOM cost. We wanted a flexible turn-key design that provides ODMs/OEMs with a complete solution that they can use in a wide range of devices. We selected Wolfson as our ideal partner of choice due to their long track record of providing high performance audio and PMIC solutions together with an attractive price/performance.

“While WiFi phones first appeared quite some time ago, early phones were hampered by limited battery life and lower quality audio. However the latest generation of WiFi phones using our reference design have outstanding audio quality and better battery life than many cordless phones. We are now seeing a resurgence in replacing cordless phones both in the business environment and in consumers’ homes and pockets with full-featured VoIP WiFi handsets. This is being driven by leading broadband service providers and a sea-change in the industry toward bringing the internet and broadband and the ubiquity of WiFi into the handset, including web browsers, home portals, TV guides, enterprise directory lookup services and video streaming – features that are impossible on existing cordless phones. A new generation of devices with bigger screens, full featured OSs like Android are being born. These bridge the gap from low cost phones to internet tablets and are set to revolutionise the consumer experience.”