PARIS, France and SAN FRANCISCO, California – February 23, 2017 – LTE chipmaker Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) and Orion Labs, a leader in communication technology dedicated to connecting people and services through the power of voice, today announced a strategic partnership that will look 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. Using Monarch, Orion Labs will be able to develop wearable devices which can provide voice communications to other devices, people and bots, without the need to tether to a cell phone.
“It’s exciting that Orion Labs has chosen our Monarch chip to develop its next generation of wearable devices,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO. “The current Onyx product 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.”
“Sequans’ Monarch chip is the most highly-optimized and efficient chip available in the market today,” said Greg Albrecht, CTO at Orion Labs. “With Onyx, we are pushing the technology boundaries by offering heads-up voice communication with unlimited range between people and soon with voice services like Amazon’s Alexa and other third-party bots through the Orion Labs bot framework. This partnership with Sequans will allow us to continue to push the boundaries, putting cutting-edge technology into our products to provide the best possible experience for our customers.”
Monarch is the world’s 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. Monarch complies with the ultra-low-power and reduced complexity feature requirements of the 3GPP release 13 LTE Advanced Pro standard, defining narrowband, low data rate LTE technology for machine type communications. Monarch 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 it provides the enhanced coverage modes defined in the standard that extend coverage for deep-indoor and remote deployments. Monarch comprises baseband, RF, power management, and RAM, all integrated into a single, tiny 6.5 x 8.5 mm package. In addition, Monarch 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.
See Sequans at Mobile World Congress, February 27 through March 2, Hall 7, Stand 7I81
About Sequans Communications
Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) is a leading provider of single-mode 4G LTE semiconductor solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and a wide range of broadband data devices. Founded in 2003, Sequans has developed and delivered seven generations of 4G technology and its chips are certified and shipping in 4G networks around the world. Today, Sequans offers two LTE product lines: StreamrichLTE™, optimized for feature-rich mobile computing and home/portable router devices, and StreamliteLTE™, optimized for M2M devices and other connected devices for the IoT. Sequans is based in Paris, France with additional offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Visit Sequans online atwww.sequans.com; www.facebook.com/sequans; www.twitter.com/sequans
See: www.sequans.com/lteforiot
About Orion Labs
Orion Labs is a San Francisco company dedicated to connecting people through seamless voice communication. Orion Labs’ core belief is that you should be able to communicate with people who aren’t by your side, without yelling or getting distracted by your phone, giving you more time and ability to focus on the moments and people around you. The Orion Labs experience connects people in conversation across any distance as though they were in the same room. Orion Labs was founded by cloud infrastructure pioneers Jesse Robbins and Greg Albrecht. To learn more, visit www.orionlabs.io.
