GainSpan’s Embedded Wi-Fi Sensor Reference Design Achieves Wi-Fi Protected Set-up Certification

Date: 9/9/2010

- enables users to connect to existing Wi-Fi Networks with the press of a button

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance nearly half of Wi-Fi users experience a moderate to high degree of difficulty when setting up secure networks, and more worryingly, as many as 40 percent of consumers leave their networks completely unsecured.  That’s why the Wi-Fi Alliance developed its Wi-Fi Protected Set-upÔ (WPS) industry standard.  WPS simplifies the process of setting up a secure Wi-Fi network. With Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, joining a network is simple – all that is required is the push of a button or the entry of a short PIN code.  Users no longer have to enter a network identifier (SSID) and pass phrase to enable WPA security. Wi-Fi Protected Set-up automatically configures a wireless network with a network name (SSID) and strong WPA/WPA2 data encryption and authentication.

And to enable its customers to offer devices and appliances that feature Wi-Fi Protected Set-up certification, Ismosys partner GainSpan® Corporation has achieved Wi-Fi CERTIFIEDÔ for Wi-Fi Protected Set-upÔ  accreditation for its Wi-Fi Sensor Reference design. Based on its popular GS1011 Wi-Fi System-on-a Chip (SoC) solution, GainSpan’s Wi-Fi Sensor Reference design was the first low power Wi-Fi design to achieve certification for enterprise level WPA/WPA2 security as well as personal security.  The reference design supports data rates of up to 11 Mbps and is able to operate in 802.11 b/g/n networks. With the aid of this reference design Gainspan customers can be assured that the devices they offer will attach to WPS certified Access Points (AP), which represent the majority of already installed APs and most if not all the APs shipping today. The sensor reference design can be purchased from Ismosys on-line store as part of an evaluation kit.

“GainSpan is low-power embedded Wi-Fi innovator and offers an extensive suite of solutions including Wi-Fi chip and module products, comprehensive firmware solution and evaluation & development kits”, said Ismosys MD Nigel Watts. “With GainSpan embedded Wi-Fi solutions our European customers active in the healthcare & fitness, smart energy, industrial control, commercial/building automation and home automation arenas are able to develop an entirely new class of Internet-connected products”.