Qualcomm's plan to invade your home - and make your light bulbs smarter

The omnipotent Qualcomm has just announced two new chips focused on the Internet of Things (or the Internet of Everything, as it prefers to call it).

That might not sound too exciting on the face of it, but these will play a massive part in making various home devices smarter, from coffee machines to light bulbs and toasters.

The XCA401x is Qualcomm's flagship WiFi solution chip, which it will be slipping in things like lightbulbs and coffee machines, while the QCA4531, Qualcomm's new linux-based WiFi solution, is designed for smart hubs.

A sure thing

Qualcomm has massive ambitions for the Internet of Things. More than 120 million smart home devices with Qualcomm's tech were shipped last year, and it sees this as a $1Trillion industry by 2020.

That will include everything from the home to wearables to automotive and even drones.

That said, it remains a broad, sometimes confusing mesh of technologies - but Qualcomm is spearheading this movement by setting the technology agenda.

President Derek Aberle said in San Francisco today that Qualcomm had the advantage of understanding the huge range of technologies that play into the IoT.

Qualcomm President Derek Aberle said at an event in San Francisco that companies only playing in Wifi and ignoring cellular - or vice versa - will struggle in this space.

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