LTE chipmaker Sequans Communications and Orion Labs, a leader in communication technology have announced a strategic partnership to bring the power of LTE-M to wearable devices for the first time. Orion Labs will work with Sequans to utilize their world-first LTE-M/NB-IoT Monarch chip to power future wearable communication devices that can provide voice communications to other devices, people and bots, without the need to tether to a cell phone.
Monarch is considered as the worlds’ first and most highly-optimized LTE-M (Cat M1) and NB-IoT (Cat NB1) chip. It is purpose-built for narrowband IoT applications; including sensors, wearables, and other low data, low power M2M and IoT devices. It complies with the ultra-low-power and reduced complexity feature requirements of the 3GPP Release 13 LTE Advanced Pro standards, defining narrowband, low data rate LTE technology for machine type communications. It also provides full support for Power Saving Mode (PSM) and extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) to enable the long battery life needed by many IoT use cases, and provides the enhanced coverage modes defined in the standard that extend coverage for deep-indoor and remote deployments.
Monarch integrates the baseband, RF, power management, and RAM, all into a single, 6.5 x 8.5 mm package. In addition, it supports advanced features such as programmable RF filtering for global band support in a single SKU, and proprietary dynamic power management technology enabling battery life of 10+ years.
The current Onyx product from Orion Labs is already a brilliant IoT wearable, and when it is enabled with LTE by Monarch, Onyx will be even more intelligent, and deployable on a wide scale, cost-effectively. This partnership with Sequans will allow them to continue to push the boundaries, putting cutting-edge technology into their products to provide the best possible experience for customers.
Sequans is presenting at MWC 17 for exhibiting its latest range of products.
