ArkX Labs Receives Amazon AVS Qualification for EveryWord™ Far-Field Reference Design Kit

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#amazonvoiceservice–ArkX Laboratories, a joint venture between hardware design and development firm Surfaceink and consumer electronics manufacturing company Ark USA, announces its EveryWord™ Ultra Far-Field Reference Design Kit has been qualified by Amazon AVS. The advanced far-field development kit features Cirrus Logic SoundClear® Technology and NXP i.MX 8 host processor technology.

“The Amazon AVS qualification of the far-field development kit means that consumer electronic OEM product managers, engineers and developers can test and validate their voice-enabled products using an advanced voice solution to mitigate risk, reduce development costs, and accelerate their time-to-market with confidence,” says Eric Bauswell, CEO of ArkX Laboratories. “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 EveryWord™ 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.

The advanced far-field technology 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 8+ 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.

“Our EveryWord™ 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.

The EveryWord™ Ultra Far-Field Reference Design Kit can be purchased at www.arkxlabsshop.com.

About ArkX Laboratories

Ark Electronics USA and Surfaceink, a joint venture born out of the vision of two innovative and dynamic businesses, one with broad traditional industry knowledge and experience, the other with a diversified and extensive track record in enabling technologies, to deliver a better voice experience to the marketplace. The ArkX next generation of advanced performance far-field voice capture solutions, powered by Cirrus Logic and NXP technology, are Amazon qualified and ready to go. This provides Fortune 500, OEMs, and start-ups who want their own branded, voice-enabled IoT products and smart devices.

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.

Contacts

Bill Kamper at Bill@simplifiedsolutions.biz