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TI Delivers Industry’s Only Over-The-Air Download Capabilities For Seamless Software Updates

6th March 2013

ES Admin

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Answering the growing need for smartphone and tablet applications that update seamlessly, Texas Instruments announces a truly wireless solution with a unique over-the-air-download feature in its BLE-Stack 1.3 software for use with the CC2540 and CC2541 Bluetooth low energy system-on-chips. Single-mode Bluetooth low energy or Bluetooth Smart is increasing in popularity because it allows consumers to connect to their smartphones and tablets to automotive, home office, medical and health, sports and fitness as well as mobile and PC accessories.

However, the always evolving smartphone and tablet market and its regular firmware updates can cause a Bluetooth Smart device to no longer connect, which poses a user experience challenge for accessory manufacturers. Currently, a user would have to plug their device into a computer via USB and download an update from the manufacturer’s site.

The OAD feature helps manufacturers better support users with a simple software upgrade process shortly after smartphone and tablets receive their own Bluetooth low energy firmware updates. Additionally, updates to firmware can be downloaded wirelessly from numerous central devices, including smartphones, tablets or PCs onto TI’s CC2540/1 SoCs making device updates even more accessible for consumers.

“We have increasingly seen manufacturers being concerned about their products becoming obsolete or hard to use because of smartphone and tablet Bluetooth low energy firmware updates,” said Sid Shaw, worldwide business development and marketing manager, Wireless Connectivity Solutions, TI. “With our BLE-Stack 1.3, updating software on a CC2540/1-enabled device is easy through the OAD feature—consumers can update their own device wirelessly and manufacturers’ can also extend the shelf-life of products for longer revenue streams.”

Tools, availability, packaging and price

For customers using Bluetooth low energy and proprietary implementations, TI’s unique Boot Image Manager allows multiple firmware stacks to reside on a single CC2540/1 SoC. BIM enables an end-product to support two different Bluetooth low energy stacks or a single Bluetooth low energy stack and a single 2.4GHz proprietary stack.

TI’s BLE-Stack 1.3 Bluetooth low energy application software is available royalty-free to all customers using TI’s CC2540/1 Bluetooth low energy SoC family. The CC2540DKMINI, CC2540DK and CC2541EMK development kits are available on TI’s eStore for USD $99, $299, and $99, respectively. TI’s CC2541 SensorTag development kit is available on the eStore for USD $25.