Kiss Connector Technology Goes ‘Hand in Hand’ With Wireless Power, Venuti Says

When wireless connectivity startup company Keyssa's Kiss technology platform launches in the fall, it will be from “two large data customers,” Steve Venuti, vice-president-strategic solutions, told us in a follow-up to a recent interview on the platform (see 1507020037). In addition, “two large branded companies are hopefully going to be launching products by the end of this year,” said Venuti, the former president of HDMI Licensing. “I can’t give any clue to what devices. I am not allowed to.” Led by Chairman Tony Fadell, founder of Nest, Keyssa is backed by $47 million in funding from heavyweights such as Dolby Labs, Intel and Samsung. Its near-field communications-based technology claims video and data transfer rates of 6 Gbps wirelessly. Kiss is “very sweet technology” that’s “protocol-agnostic” and consumes “very low energy,” Venuti said. “It’s the energy equivalent of a wire, not like Wi-Fi. I love giving a demo to CTOs, they marvel.” Kiss technology “is so new it takes a lot of learning how to focus,” he said. “Tolerances are very tight. It’s like when we first launched HDMI there was so many pains trying to get people to change their mentality from analog to digital. It’s the same sort of thing. Every new technology has a learning curve.” Above all, Kiss will be “extremely affordable,” Venuti said. “We have done a lot to make it manufacturable. It will be very inexpensive -- a dollar or two on our side, at component level.” Asked whether Keyssa sees Kiss ultimately replacing HDMI, Venuti said: “A connector never goes away or goes away very slowly. It will be a slow gradual descent.” Citing “the Intels and Qualcomms of this world,” Venuti said many large companies “are talking about a wire-free world.” Kiss technology “goes hand to hand with wireless power,” he said. “We see them on the same ascent. Once you get rid of the need for data transfer and power from wires, devices just don’t need wires any more. Although the consumer is very happy with one wire, with HDMI, we all know they much prefer zero wires. But that’s over time.” As for whether he sees an HDMI cable in his future with Kiss connectors at each end, Venuti said: “You could envision that. In fact, we envision that as well. It’s still a cable but with an invisible connector. A connector you can’t see.”