The New xG27 Wireless SoCs Bring Secure High-performance Mesh Networking at the Reach of Small Smart Home Devices

The world of IoT is going through the most profound transformation yet. It happens so close to our everyday lives – at home –we don’t even think about it. The biggest change drivers are fundamental things almost everyone can resonate with – like how to save energy at home and live more sustainably. How to make the home more convenient and efficient to cope with hectic life? Or, how to keep home safe and secure amid everything becoming digital and connected? Addressing these consumer needs could become a once-in-a-lifetime revenue opportunity for many smart home device makers. However, the challenge is integrating high-performance wireless computing and security on small, resource-constrained IoT devices.

Smart Home Growth

Homes are becoming more than they used to be – they are places for working, learning, shopping, experiencing, and more. Home-centric living drives people to invest in their homes, growing spending on smart home devices and wireless IoT applications. The wireless smart home market is expected to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent and reach a total value of USD 1.95 billion in 2026 globally.

To turn the ongoing smart home IoT revolution into a successful business, IoT device makers will be challenged to build smaller, smarter, more energy-efficient, and secure wireless devices such as sensors, switches, and thermostats, i.e., the devices that form the backbone of any automated home.

How to Build Small Battery-Powered Wireless Devices for Homes

Designing energy-efficient multi-node smart home solutions with constrained device capabilities and form factors is challenging. Battery-powered devices such as sensors and door locks are sensitive to energy consumption. Excessive current draw increases battery replacement frequency, costs, and waste for the user. Ultra-low-power wireless solutions help device makers optimize battery life while delivering high-performance connectivity, enhancing user experience, and minimizing battery hassles.

For battery-operated multi-node devices such as switches and dimmers, energy-efficient mesh networking technologies like Zigbee Green Power can enable high-performance connectivity in a small form factor.

Security is the #1 concern among the users of connected smart home devices. So, making compute-constrained, low-power devices more secure to protect the users’ privacy remains a crucial challenge for device makers. Many demanding technical requirements must be built into the devices at every level, down to the hardware components, software, and wireless stacks. 

The Solution is the xG27 Family of Small wireless SoCs

The SILICON LABS EFR32xG27 family of wireless SoCs is designed for battery-powered smart home IoT devices that, despite their small form factor and constrained resources, need high-performance wireless, high computing, large memory, and robust security. The xG27 packs all that and more on a compact footprint of 4x4mm to lower production costs and enable smaller and more appealing designs, all of which can be critical elements in the consumer market, where a few pennies of cost savings can be a deal breaker, and buyers make purchase decisions by the looks of the product.

The xG27 supports the Virtual Secure Engine with robust security capabilities such as tamper detection, DPA countermeasures, and secure key management with PUF, ensuring your devices won’t be the weakest link of smart home security. Additionally, xG27 is pin-compatible with the xG22 family, providing the users of BG22 and MG22 an upgrade path to more memory and higher security.

BG27 Bluetooth LE SoC

The BG27 features high-performance, ultra-low-power Bluetooth Low Energy and Bluetooth mesh with best-in-class security. It is an ideal Bluetooth enabler on various smart home devices where ultra-low-power consumption must coincide with high-performance wireless, computing, and memory capacity – these include contact sensors, temperature and humidity sensors, thermostats, HVAC controllers, locks, smart appliances, and more. The Bluetooth mesh support on BG27 will allow energy-efficient and long-range multi-node LED lighting solutions with switches and sensors.  

MG27 Multiprotocol and Zigbee SoC

The MG27 SoC family is designed for ultra-low-power Zigbee and Multiprotocol connectivity. It supports Zigbee Green Power for end nodes, routing, and proxy nodes, maximizing the battery replacement interval for the user. The ideal device types for MG27 are various battery-powered multi-node home sensors and switches.