Marvell unveils compact home gateway system

Marvell has recently unleashed what it describes as a ready-to-customise home server/home networking/IoT gateway system. Dubbed by the company as "Smart Home Cloud Centre," the highly integrated unit, which is small enough to hold in one hand, allows consumers to manage their wired and wireless network connectivity, store home media, automate home devices and access digital home entertainment.

In an interview with EE Times, Weili Dai, president and co-founder of Marvell, called it "common sense IoT solution for home." While acknowledging "a religious war" on the IoT market among devices using different operating systems and separate ecosystems, Dai said, "Our hope is to bring IoT to the masses, by offering a dynamic smart translator based on Kinoma."

Kinoma, originally developed as "a next-generation virtual software platform," had been used by companies such as Palm, Sony and Sling Media, before Kinoma was acquired by Marvell in 2010. Today, Marvell's Dai sees Kinoma software as "an integral ingredient" to tie disparate IoT products and services.

IoT becomes turnkey

Marvell's Smart Home Cloud Centre, a sort of IoT gateway on steroids, is a reference design. It's designed to be easy for vendors to build their own IoT gateway/server system, so that different IoT devices can work together in the home.

While a host of vendors are promoting IoT building blocks, including many connectivity chips and sensors, Marvell has gone ahead and built a whole system, allowing customers to visualise what they could develop in order to get in on the IoT action.

Marvell's system is designed as a "turnkey solution" for OEMs and service providers with little to no experience in connected homes. In theory, they can pick up the reference design, select the features they want and get a head start in IoT.

Marvell's target audience for this reference design includes "OEMs with their own brands, hard disk drive companies and service providers," according to Dai.