| Q. |
Which wireless technology does Cypress Envirosystems use in its products? |
| A. |
Cypress Envirosystems uses highly integrated, low power, high performance 2.4GHz Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum radios manufactured by Cypress Semiconductor. The radios use 80 1-MHz channels in the 2402-2481MHz unlicensed Industrial, Scientific, and Medical RF band, and support peak data rates of 250kbps in DSSS mode, and 1Mbps in un-spread GFSK mode. |
| Q. |
What are the advantages of using this particular wireless technology in Cypress Envirosystems products? |
| A. |
Cypress radios are low power, have unmatched interference immunity, can be co-located with many Cypress wireless nodes in the same environment, and operate in the 2.4GHz spectrum, which is open for commercial use in most countries around the world. They are also optimized for our applications, so they do not carry extra baggage like other industry standard radio solutions that try to address a wide variety of applications without being ideally suited for any one application. |
| Q. |
What is the RF transmit output power or your radios? |
| A. |
The radios are capable of an RF output power of +4dBm (2.5mW). Several of our products employ an additional integrated RF power amplifier to further boost the output signal up to +20dBm (100mW) for applications that require longer range or that need to operate in harsh environments. |
| Q. |
What is the wireless operating range of your devices? |
| A. |
Our 100mW products have a typical indoor operating range of over 100m, but the range can vary from between 50m to over 500m depending on the operating environment. |
| Q. |
Does your radio cause interference with my other existing wireless devices? |
| A. |
Extensive testing has shown that our wireless solution has a negligible effect on the data throughput of other wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and WiFi. One reason is that our duty cycle is typically very low, so we only transmit for 1ms out of every 60seconds typically, which is a duty cycle of only 1/60000. Another reason that we have minimal effect on other wireless networks is because our wireless devices will detect the presence of RF energy from other sources, and will automatically change channels to find a portion of the spectrum that is free, thus having no effect on WiFi communications. |
| Q. |
What are the provisions for encryption and security in your wireless products. |
| A. |
Our wireless solutions employ 128-bit AES encryption, with multiple options for key exchange, depending on the customer's required level of security. Other encryption technologies can also be supported at the customer's request. |
| Q. |
What wireless topologies do your products support? |
| A. |
Cypress Envirosystems wireless products use a hybrid mesh topology, with support for optional repeater nodes for extended coverage, reliability, and range. This type of star topology provides the most power efficient solution for the remote sensor nodes, allowing us to achieve a very long battery life in our products. |
| Q. |
What is the power consumption of your radio? |
| A. |
In receive mode, the current consumption is 22mA, and in +4dBm transmit mode, the peak current consumption is 35mA. Since Cypress Envirosystems sensor products typically use a very low duty cycle for transmitting data, and are consequently in sleep mode for over 99% of the time, the overall power consumption is dominated by the sleep current, which is extremely low at <1uA for our device. |
