The Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics RF4CE consortium has merged with the ZigBee® Alliance to drive the next generation of RF control technologies. Freescale's RF4CE protocol stack (Beestack™ Consumer) brings home entertainment control into the 21st century. The BeeStack Consumer protocol stack is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard and defines a lightweight network stack to control consumer electronic products such as TVs, set-top boxes, DVD players, A/V receivers and remote controls. By introducing radio frequency (RF) control as a replacement technology to traditional IR-controlled products, issues such as line-of-sight control, field of vision limitations and limited interoperability are now a thing of the past.

Freescale continues to lead the IR-to-RF evolution as it has for many years now by providing the first standards based, networking protocol  for the consumer electronics marketplace (SynkroRF). SynkroRF is the foundation for the current RF4CE specification. Freescale is the leader in RF home entertainment control and has millions of units deployed around the world in partnership with many of the largest consumer electronic companies.

RF4CE Protocol Benefits

• Standards Based

  • Based on the 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 Standard
  • Support for application profiles that define standardized command sets for multi-vendor interoperability
  • Support for vendor specific extensions to standard application profiles for vendor specific customization

• Robust

  • No Line-of-Sight or Field-of-Vision limitations
  • High speed bi-directional communication with acknowledgments to ensure data is received correctly
  • Supports unacknowledged communications to meet low latency requirements of applications such as pointing devices
  • Channel agility helps avoid interference in high RF noise environments

• Secure

  • Supports AES-128 bit encryption
  • Provides a mechanism for secured key generation

• Low Power

  • Specifies various power saving modes to increase battery life and lower standby current to meet strict Energy Star requirements

• Flexible Pairing

  • Provides a simple mechanism to pair devices (such as a remote to TV)
  • Ensures only authorized devices are able to communicate (a users remote will not turn his neighbor's TV on or off)