Hillcrest Labs Unveils Freespace® MotionEngine™ Lite for Smart TV Market

ROCKVILLE, M.D., Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Hillcrest Labs, a market leader in multiplatform motion software and products, today unveiled a new addition to its award-winning Freespace^® MotionEngine^™ software family: Freespace MotionEngine Lite. MotionEngine Lite provides high performance, in-air cursor control on 8-bit processors commonly found on remote controls, with lower costs and simpler integration than typical Smart TV motion control implementations. Hillcrest's Freespace MotionEngine Lite software is available today for Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) ZigBee^® RF4CE (Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics) and Bluetooth^® low energy solutions.

"MotionEngine Lite provides ultra-high performance cursor control with a minimized software footprint," said Chad Lucien, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Hillcrest Labs. "MotionEngine Lite includes Hillcrest's proprietary, patented orientation (or roll) compensation feature and does not require any end-user calibration, in contrast to other alternatives. We are also very pleased to launch this product line pre-integrated with TI's industry leading RF (radio frequency) solutions to enable a turn-key solution for the rapidly evolving Smart TV market."

"We are pleased to continue our work with Hillcrest to provide cost-effective, low-power solutions for customers interested in developing next-gen remotes, enabled by high-precision motion control," said Stig Torud, Remote Control Strategic Marketing, Wireless Connectivity Solutions, TI. "Hillcrest's MotionEngine Lite software combined with TI's ZigBee RF4CE and Bluetooth low energy solutions bring low-latency and high-performance cursor control to Smart TV, set-top box, and PC motion remote controls." 

Freespace MotionEngine Lite

The Freespace MotionEngine Lite motion software uses data from accelerometers and gyroscopes to provide high performance cursor control for enhanced content navigation, Web browsing, point-and-click gaming, and more. MotionEngine Lite integrates many of the same features and functionalities that have made Hillcrest's full MotionEngine Smart TV software suite a market leader, including unique patented features, such as: orientation (or roll) compensation, real-time sensor calibration and precise cursor control. Hillcrest's sensor qualification process ensures equally high performance with sensors from any major MEMS supplier. MotionEngine Lite can also support cursor gestures through integration with Hillcrest's host-based Gesture Recognition Engine, which provides more than 50 pre-defined gestures and a software development kit (SDK) to easily create additional, customized gestures.

Product Availability

Freespace MotionEngine Lite is available today through a license with Hillcrest Labs. MotionEngine Lite runs on high-volume, low cost RF system-on-chips (SoCs), including TI's RF transceivers and TI's CC2541 Bluetooth low energy and CC2533 ZigBee RF4CE SoC solutions. The MotionEngine Lite software is provided to qualified customers for simplified integration into a variety of Smart TV, set-top box and PC products. In addition, Hillcrest's remote control OEM partners, including its preferred partners SMK Electronics and Universal Electronics, are enabled to design and manufacture motion remote controls with the new MotionEngine Lite software.

Companies that have licensed Freespace for use in their products include: Eastman Kodak, LG Electronics, Logitech, Roku, SMK Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., TCL Multimedia, Universal Electronics (UEI), and more. Hillcrest's global intellectual property portfolio includes more than 200 patent filings, covering critical methods for motion control of Smart TVs and other motion systems.

Hillcrest has been named a finalist in two categories for the ConnectedWorld.TV Awards, to be presented at IBC 2012 on September 10. Freespace MotionEngine is a finalist in the Middleware & CPE Technology category, and the Freespace natural motion product line has been nominated by the judges as one of five Technology Breakthroughs of the Year. Hillcrest has received numerous other awards and recognitions, including the prestigious CES Innovations Honoree Award multiple times, EE Times' ACE Award, PC World's 100 Best Products and Greatest Tech Designs, Popular Mechanics' Editors Choice, ECN's Reader's Choice Tech, and many others.

Additional information about Hillcrest's broad portfolio of motion control products is available at: www.HillcrestLabs.com. Follow Hillcrest on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HillcrestLabs or Twitter at @HillcrestLabs.

For more details about TI's Bluetooth low energy, ZigBee RF4CE SoCs, and related software and development kits, visit www.ti.com/ble and www.ti.com/rf4ce. TI's latest Bluetooth low energy remote kit, based on the CC2541, is currently sampling to lead customers with wide-availability expected in 4Q.

About Hillcrest Labs

Hillcrest Laboratories (a.k.a. Hillcrest Labs) is a market leader in multiplatform motion software and products. The company provides motion solutions under the Freespace^® brand for Smart TVs, Blu-ray and streaming media players, smartphones and tablets, game controllers, and other markets. For consumers, Hillcrest offers the Kylo^® browser, a free Web browser for TV. For additional information, visit www.hillcrestlabs.com.

Hillcrest Labs, Freespace, and MotionEngine are trademarks of Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. All company names and other trademarks remain property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Hillcrest Labs