Collonovita Therapy Bidet BD-TE80M

Nordic Semiconductor announced on the 23rd that domestic small home appliance company Kohler Novita has adopted Nordic's nRF51822 Bluetooth LE SoC for its Therapy Bidet BD-TE80M and the product's remote control.

The smart bidet seat is designed for domestic installation and can be mounted on an existing toilet seat by connecting to the main water supply via a branch valve. Nordic’s nRF51822 SoC provides the wireless connection between the bidet seat and a Bluetooth 4.0 (or later) smartphone or tablet, as well as the product’s remote control, allowing the user to operate the bidet using the iOS and Android-based Novita Therapy app on their mobile device, or via the wireless remote control. The bidet seat can also be operated via a push button on the seat itself.

This bidet seat is mains powered and the remote control uses AAA batteries that will last up to 12 months before needing replacement. This is thanks to the ultra-low power characteristics of the nRF51822 SoC, which is designed to minimize power consumption.

Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822

Nordic’s nRF51822 is a flexible multiprotocol SoC ideally suited for Bluetooth LE and 2.4GHz ultra-low-power wireless applications. The nRF51822 features a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 CPU, a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio, and 256kB/128kB Flash and 32kB/16kB RAM. The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S130 SoftDevice, a certified Bluetooth 4.2 multi-link protocol stack solution capable of performing Central/Peripheral/Broadcaster/Observer functions simultaneously.

“Infrared remote controls have the disadvantage of requiring a line-of-sight link, so we wanted to use an RF alternative such as Bluetooth LE,” says Bongkyun Kim, Manager of the Bidet Development Group at Kohler Novita R&D Labs. “The nRF51822 SoC facilitates application development due to the strengths of its own software architecture and the ability to clearly separate Nordic SoftDevice and Novita’s application code.”

Manager Kim Bong-gyun added, “ARM CPU performance and low power consumption were both important factors in selecting Nordic SoC, and technical support and quick Q&A responses were also highly evaluated.”