Cypresss CyFi Low-Power RF Solution Takes Winemaking Wireless

Tuesday, Dec 02, 2008

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has released a new video documenting the use of its low-power wireless solution: CyFi Low-Power RF. The company said the video was filmed at Clos de la Tech, the boutique pinot noir winery founded by CEO T.J. Rodgers and his wife Valeta.

In the video, Cypress noted, T.J. Rodgers deploys a CyFi Wireless Sensor Network Solution and turns a complex and exacting industrial process into one that can be monitored from a single personal computer. Temperature, humidity, light levels, and other environmental conditions are monitored at points across the winery. These sensor readings are then transmitted in real time to a USB receiver, which displays running charts in any configuration the user requires.

""This is a genuine wireless wire,"" said T.J. Rodgers. ""And that's really something because most of the wireless technologies are either too slow, error-prone, complex, expensive, or too unreliable to be trusted with Clos de la Tech. Obviously factory operators feel the same way.""

In a release, the company noted: Because CyFi uses the Star Network protocol stack, which is a fraction of the size and complexity of competitors yet far more robust, it has intelligent error correction and can support hundreds of individual nodes simultaneously. With battery life measured in years and range measured in hundreds of meters, CyFi has the ability to replace many remote sensors in an industrial environment, creating operating efficiencies never before thought possible.

Since 1997, Clos de la Tech, with three Northern California vineyards, has produced boutique pinot noir wine. Each bottle has an advanced silicon memory chip embedded in the wax sealing. The winery adheres to old-world methods of vinification, right down to natural foot-crushing and destemming processes, and aims to produce the finest New World pinot noir.

At Clos de la Tech, the CY3271 PSoC FirstTouch Start Kit with CyFi Low-Power RF was used to remotely monitor pinot noir grapes in 'cold soak'; and the optional CY3271-EXP1, a complete weather station that attaches as a module to the starter kit, to measure conditions in the barrel room.