Silicon Image-Owned Wireless Group Plans Compliance Testing

Envisioning a day in the near future when “all of the electronics will be out of the panel” and TV panels will be “even thinner” than they are today, the Wireless Speaker and Audio Association is attending CES this week with the hopes of padding its member roster of speaker makers, semiconductor companies and electronics manufacturers. The group, a subsidiary of HDMI licensor Silicon Image, was formed last month with the charter to “foster interoperability compliance testing between CE devices and high-performance wireless speakers."

WiSA will develop a common certification platform so wireless “slave devices,” or speakers, can operate with any WiSA-compatible wireless master or CE devices from any manufacturer, Jim Venable, president of the WiSA Association, told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We're at an inflection point in the industry,” Venable said. “Digital TV manufacturers are coming out with products that are getting thinner and thinner,” he said, referencing LG’s 55-inch OLED display that will be demonstrated at the show. “In a TV that’s a quarter-inch thick, where are you going to put the speakers?” he said. Eventually TVs will “just be glass,” he said, “and the first thing to go will be the speakers.” Despite the reference, LG is not on WiSA’s charter member list, which includes Aperion Audio, Polk Audio and Definitive Technology parent company DEI Holdings, Hansong Electronics, Klipsch Group, Meiloon Industrial, Pioneer, Sharp, Silicon Image and Summit Semiconductor.

Attempts over the years to have one brand’s electronics communicate with those of competitors have failed as manufacturers ultimately wanted to use seamless interoperability within the brand as a proprietary selling feature. Venable said times have changed and the eventual separation of the TV from the electronics demands a wireless standard for linking speakers to AV sources. Consumers spending $2000 for a 60- or 70-inch panel want sound quality to match the quality of the display, he said, and “manufacturers need a way to refer their customers to quality audio somewhere in the ecosystem.” TV makers may end up packaging a “cheap soundbar” with TVs in Venable’s vision of the future, “but they're not happy about having to develop a $2,000 surround-sound system,” he said. Speaker makers are “champing at the bit to have their speakers work with any CE source device,” he said. “All of this is coming together, and now is the time.” Venable maintained there’s been a “groundswell of interest” in the group, which he expects to grow significantly over the next 9 months. Targeted products include TVs, speakers, Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and mobile devices, he said.

WiSA is in the process of developing a compliance test specification from which manufacturers can develop products for mass production, Venable said. A draft spec is available today and Venable anticipates a final 1.0 version by the end of Q1. WiSA will leverage Simplay Lab’s test centers -- which also certify HDMI and MHL products -- around the world and the centers will begin accepting product submissions in Q2, according to Venable. He said the first WiSA-certified products could be in the market by year-end and he expected product announcements at CES.

Aperion Audio is selling a compatible product today -- the Summit series of wireless speaker systems, Venable said. As momentum begins to build, “we'll see more design wins in Q2 or Q3 or Q1 of early 2013,” he said. Summit Semiconductor will show WiSA-supported transmission and receiver modules at CES for sale to consumer brands, the company said last week.

Although next-gen wired connectivity solutions including HD BaseT and DiiVA include power in their connectivity solutions, Venable said power transmission is not a component of the WiSA road map because of potential noise. Components will still require a power cord, he said, because “that solution wouldn’t provide the clean bandwidth signal required for high-definition audio.” Initial WiSA-certified products will deliver “interference-free” and lossless HD audio over the 5GHz U-NII frequency band, using a frequency-hopping method in a section of the spectrum that’s largely unused, compared to lower-frequency bands where cordless phones, microwave ovens and Bluetooth devices compete, he said.

According to WiSA mission statement, a wide range of WiSA-certified products will be available, from entry-level to high-end, and will deliver audio in 16- or 24-bit versions and up to a 96-kHz sampling rate. Configurations range from two-channel stereo to 7.1-channel surround sound, it said. The testing and certification program is said to ensure consumers can set up a 7.1-channel home theater system in 30 minutes or less, on average.