ArkX Laboratories Launches E-commerce Site for Far-Field Voice Development Kit

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#AVS—ArkX Laboratories, a joint venture between product development pioneer Surfaceink and consumer electronics manufacturer ARKUSA, announces the launch of arkxlabsshop.com, a new e-commerce website for their EveryWord™ far-field voice reference design kit. The advanced voice development kit, featuring Cirrus Logic SoundClear® and NXP i.MX 8 host processor technology, allows developers to test and validate their voice-enabled products using an advanced voice solution to mitigate risk, reduce development costs, and accelerate their time-to-market.

The ArkX development kit comes with a full Amazon AVS voice stack pre-installed and exceeds all Alexa Qualification Tool and Reference Solution far-field test requirements in both 2 mic and 4 mic configurations. The platform is also suitable for use with all major voice assistants including Google, Siri, Cortana, Bixby, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.

“We developed our far-field AVS Dev Kit for consumer electronics and industrial product developers seeking advanced voice solutions,” said CEO Eric Bauswell. “By effectively overcoming background and barge-in noise, we believe we have a far superior product that gives them the option to go beyond what is currently available in the marketplace.”

The advanced performance ArkX development kit increases the accuracy and reliability of “Alexa” wake-word triggering and command recognition at far-field distances and in noisy environments; it comes preloaded with Amazon Pryon Lite Wake-Word-Engine and accepts Sensory Wake-Word-Engine. Additionally, it supports 6+ meters far-field operation with 2, 3, or 4 microphones and arbitrary mic array geometries, including circular, square, triangular, linear, or 3D.

The AEC is scalable to mono, stereo, 3-channel, and 5-channel (surround movie or music) use cases. The unit supports far-field voice call mode and in-call voice triggering and is also suitable for wall-powered devices or portable battery-operated products with low milliwatt consumption. Other features include AVS compliant LED indicators and mic-mute button, Google Voice compliant mic spacing, an expansion bus for connecting GPIOs, I2S/TDM, SPI, I2C, and PDM mics and web-based firmware control console for simplified interactive operation, mic array selection, acoustic tuning, and diagnostics.

“The ArkX portfolio solves the biggest problems facing innovative OEMs today including, capturing voice in the presence of blaring TV and other noisy and reverberative environments without having to lower playback volume. It also works well around corners and can be placed anywhere, including a wall, ceiling, STBs, even lighting and other electrical fixtures,” said Scott McNeese, Director of Voice & Audio.

“Unlike conventional solutions that only hear in the X-Y plane, EveryWord™ hears, captures, and suppresses in all three X-Y-Z dimensions even with only 2 to 4 mics in one plane. This advanced performance delivers soft talk at half the nominal speech loudness, assuring an even better end-user experience,” McNeese added.

About ArkX Laboratories

Ark Electronics USA is a contract manufacturing and engineering design company based in the United States and China. The company serves leading consumer electronics, mobile communications, automotive, and industrial IoT brands. Their combined technical expertise with agile manufacturing processes enables customers to create original products and solutions at scale.

Surfaceink is a pioneering Silicon Valley product design and development studio that provides full-system and consulting services for Fortune 500 companies and startups including its work on flagship products for global leaders such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, Dolby, Fitbit, Google, and Intel. Surfaceink recently qualified as an Amazon Alexa Consulting & Professional Services Provider (CPS).

ArkX Laboratories is led by executives from both companies to run day-to-day operations and sales. The company’s offices are located in San Jose and Irvine, CA, USA, as well as Qingdao, China.