Vesper Partners with Synaptics, Advancing Far-field Voice Interfaces for the Amazon Alexa Voice Service

BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2017 -- Vesper, developer of the world’s most advanced piezoelectric acoustic sensors, today announced a collaboration with Synaptics Incorporated, the leading developer of human interface solutions, which will improve developers’ ability to create ultra-durable, high-performance and highly stable voice interfaces for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) devices. Synaptics has selected Vesper piezoelectric MEMS microphones for its two- and four-microphone Amazon AVS development kits. 

“Synaptics has made a name for itself in delivering world-class audio development kits that speed the creation of Alexa-enabled products,” said Matt Crowley, CEO, Vesper. “We are thrilled to work with Synaptics in offering highly optimized development solutions for Amazon AVS that significantly reduce time to market for devices with a voice interface.”

As the industry’s only piezoelectric MEMS microphones, Vesper microphones are ideally suited to MEMS microphone arrays, which are used increasingly in far-field applications, including the voice-activated smart speakers, smart home products and Internet of Things (IoT) applications that include the Amazon Alexa Voice Service. Natively immune to common environmental contaminants, such as water, oil, particles and dust, Vesper microphones are the only microphones that do not undergo progressive failure due to contamination, once deployed in the field. In a harsh environment such as a kitchen, Vesper’s microphones are the only ones that can stand up to greasy fingers, flour dust, splattering oil and smoke. The Vesper microphones have a high signal to noise ratio (SNR) to promote clearly captured voice input, even at a great distance, as well as a high acoustic overload point (AOP) to support superior acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) performance.

“From smart speakers and set-top-boxes to smart home hubs that manage temperature, lighting and security, consumers are increasingly using the Alexa Voice Service to interact with the electronic devices in their daily lives,” said Saleel Awsare, vice president and general manager, Audio and Imaging Business, Synaptics. “Since voice capture starts with the microphone, better-performing, more resilient microphones can dramatically improve consumer satisfaction with voice-interface devices. Our collaboration with Vesper allows us to provide a high-performing solution for AVS developers, which in turn, dramatically benefits consumers.”

“As it is an Alexa Fund company, we’re excited to continue to build our relationship with Vesper as they integrate further into the AVS community,” said Priya Abani, director, Amazon Alexa. “Voice is the future, and we want customers to be able to use Alexa-enabled devices in a variety of environments, including rugged conditions. It’s great to see Synaptics and Vesper are working together to bring Vesper’s durable piezoelectric MEMS microphones into Synaptics AVS dev kits – this will bring more high-quality microphone options to AVS device-makers and more choice to customers.”

For More Information
For more information about Vesper, please visit:  http://vespermems.com/technology or email: [email protected].

About Vesper
Vesper is a privately held advanced sensor company based in Boston, MA. With origins at the University of Michigan, Vesper’s award-winning microphones are driving a new era of pervasive voice interfaces and acoustic event-detection products via a proprietary piezoelectric MEMS technology. For more information about Vesper, please contact us via email: [email protected] or web: www.vespermems.com or follow us on social media Twitter, YouTube and Vesper Blog.

The Vesper logo is a registered trademark of Vesper. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Press Contacts: 

Matt Crowley 
Vesper
Email: [email protected]

Maria Vetrano 
Vetrano Communications                 
Email: [email protected]