Himax Teams Up with DESMAN to Unveil Revolutionary High-End Smart Door Locks at CES 2024

TAINAN, Taiwan and ZHEJIANG, China, Jan. 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, and Zhejiang DESMAN Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (“DESMAN”), a Chinese leading brand in the smart door lock market, today jointly announced an advanced high-end smart door lock to be unveiled at CES 2024. The innovative Shotax Sentinel Cat Eye smart door lock features Himax’s WiseEye technology, with potent vision AI and ultralow power consumption as key technical characteristics for the realization of 24/7 real-time monitoring and consecutive snapshot. This marks a significant technological advancement for power efficiency and security benchmark in smart home security.

Most conventional smart door locks on the market have two primary problems, long wake-up time and high power consumption. The typical 2 to 6 seconds wake-up time for snapshot mode, presents a security concern due to missed captures. Meanwhile, the average power consumption for each snapshot is around 200 mA. Constrained by limited battery power, these locks can only capture images when detecting someone lingering outside the door, thereby restricting their capacity for continuous full-day snapshot captures. The Shotax Sentinel Cat Eye smart door lock system, leveraging Himax ultralow power WiseEye AI technology, achieves a snapshot with power consumption as low as 1 mA, enabling uninterrupted 24-hour snapshot functionality. Furthermore, the system can promptly activate snapshots within less than 7 milliseconds, significantly mitigating the risk of missed footage captures. This advancement enhances the system's continuous monitoring capability, further conserves power, and effectively extends battery life. The WiseEye technology has reached a significant technological milestone in enabling 24/7 monitoring for smart door locks. Combined with cloud services, it ensures that users, regardless of their location, can stay informed in real-time about the latest activities at their doorways, enhancing home security while enjoying a better user experience.

Himax remains steadfast in its commitment to enhancing the performance of ultralow power WiseEye solutions and propelling advanced AI inferences, such as face recognition and personnel detection capabilities, into next generation smart door locks. As an illustration, these innovative AI features determine whether a lingering individual is suspicious by matching with the trusted database. Upon confirmation of a suspicious event, the live video recording function is triggered. Himax WiseEye AI not only helps filter out false activation but also reduces the power consumption of the smart door lock, thereby further optimizing computing energy efficiency and prolonging battery lifespan of the whole system.

“The collaboration with Himax to launch the dual cat eye smart door lock with Shotax Sentinel Cat Eye module, is designed to effectively mitigate the risk of missed footage capture. The all-day ultralow power snapshot capture functionality allows customers to enjoy 24-hour monitoring without the need for frequent battery replacement. Additionally, customers can review the playback on cloud at any time, enabling all-round and monitoring to ensure household safety,” said Mr. Sonne Sang, R&D Director at DESMAN.

“The swift integration of WiseEye technology in the smart lock sector well validates our capability to drive revolutionary breakthroughs in the industry. This collaboration with DESMAN marks a significant milestone for Himax in the smart home domain,” said Mr. Mark Chen, Vice President of Smart Sensing business at Himax. “Moving forward, Himax is committed to advancing its WiseEye product to deliver energy-efficient smart sensing AI solutions for the smart home market. Our goal is to provide consumers with a safer and more convenient way of life,” concluded Mr. Chen.

Himax and DESMAN invite all interested parties to stop by our exhibition booth at The Venetian Las Vegas Hotel (3355 Las Vegas Boulevard S, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) Venetian Exhibit Suite 34-208 to experience the parties’ state-of-the-art technologies in Smart Door Lock applications. To schedule a meeting or booth tour, please contact Himax at: Himax_CES@himax.com.tw and DESMAN yuying.chen@dessmann.com.cn

About Himax Technologies, Inc.

Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) is a leading global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. The Company’s display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others. As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the Company offers innovative and comprehensive automotive IC solutions, including traditional driver ICs, advanced in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI), local dimming timing controllers (Local Dimming Tcon), Large Touch and Display Driver Integration (LTDI) and AMOLED display technologies. Himax is also a pioneer in tinyML visual-AI and optical technology related fields. The Company’s industry-leading WiseEye^TM Smart Sensing technology which incorporates Himax proprietary ultralow power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AIoT related applications. While Himax optics technologies, such as diffractive wafer level optics, LCoS micro-displays and 3D sensing solutions, are critical for facilitating emerging AR/VR/metaverse technologies. Additionally, Himax designs and provides touch controllers, AMOLED ICs, LED drivers, EPD drivers, power management ICs, and CMOS image sensors for diverse display application coverage. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs around 2,200 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, and the US. Himax has 2,838 patents granted and 376 patents pending approval worldwide as of September 30, 2023.

http://www.himax.com.tw

Forward Looking Statements

Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in this conference call include, but are not limited to, the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Company’s business; general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortage in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; changes in export license regulated by Export Administration Regulations (EAR); exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company’s SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2022 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.

DESMAN Contact:

Yuying Chen, Branding Department
Zhejiang DESMAN Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.
Tel: +86-173-26097625
Email: yuying.chen@dessmann.com.cn
http://www.dessmannlock.com

Himax Contacts:

Eric Li, Chief IR/PR Officer
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-6-505-0880
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: hx_ir@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw

Karen Tiao, Investor Relations
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2370-3999
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: hx_ir@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw

Mark Schwalenberg, Director
Investor Relations - US Representative
MZ North America

Tel: +1-312-261-6430
Email: HIMX@mzgroup.us
www.mzgroup.us