Atheros Released Powerline Ethernet and Smart Grid System Development Kit

This announcement coincide with the release of the of the AR7400 Homeplug AV and IEEE 1901 compliant chipset.  The new development kit is to accelerate the adoption and development of hardware and software among independent software vendor and smooth the intergration with other powerline Ethernet appliances and applications.

The release of the new Software Development Kit (SDK) is part of Atheros’s strategy to be a bigger player in the home energy market, where there has been a lot of advancement and changes lately.  We have seen energy management solutions from Microsoft, with Microsoft-Hohm, Google and British Gas have also announced partnership to offer home energy management solution.

The new development kit allows the development of Smart Grid technology which uses the home’s existing electricity for data communication. Whether it is high or low voltage, the SDK has open the door for the development and implementation of smart meters, energy usage displays, programmable communication thermostats, smart appliances, electrical vihicles and other electrically powered equipment to transmit and receive data control signals.