Back in 2021, Apple made waves with the AirTag object tracker, and the precision finding capabilities enabled by ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. Apple adopted the technology with a market-ready product soon after the FCC regulated a spectrum of corresponding radio waves for unlicensed use. UWB enables everything from precision location to contactless payments. Now, Samsung has launched its own range of Exynos-branded UWB chips, possibly destined for smartphones and next-generation Samsung object trackers.
Today, Samsung launched the Exynos Connect U100 chip, named quite like Apple’s U1 chip for UWB capabilities. The new Samsung chip combines radio frequency, flash memory, a baseband, and power management technology onto a single chip, making it suitable for compact devices, like the next generation of the Galaxy SmartTag+. The chip also has an onboard scrambled timestamp sequence (STS) function — a physical cryptographic technique allowing device-level encryption for the time stamps of data packets.
Most other UWB chips are power-efficient, and Samsung’s creation is no different. The company says its chip is great for IoT and automotive applications. In the industry, UWB chips are known for their power efficiency, capability to measure time of arrival of radio waves, and the 3D angle of arrival. Together, these capabilities enable object location capabilities down to single-digit centimeters, spatial tracking without GPS in AR/VR applications, and some specialized military equipment also uses UWB to see through walls. Samsung won’t go that far, but contactless car keys, object trackers, and some potential AR/VR applications could be in the pipeline.
We have a gut feeling Samsung’s AirTag rival, the Galaxy SmartTag+ could eventually use an Exynos UWB chip, but the company hasn’t mentioned a launch timeline for any products, including Google-brand ones, using this technology. The wait could be short because the new Exynos Connect U100 has also been certified by the FiRa Consortium overseeing the UWB interoperability standards, and a recent report tipped a potential Q3 2023 release for a Galaxy SmartTag sequel.
