Speakers and antennas have many things in common: Both of them tend to be located at the outside of the enclosure. Furthermore, their function requires easy access to the ambience. With the SPKW.46.8.01, Taoglas now announces a speaker which doubles as a WiFi antenna.

Adding cutouts to physical designs is always interesting. Having fewer cutouts reduces the amount of industry design required and helps keep injection molding or 3D printing workflows simple. Combining the antenna and speaker halves the number of cutouts needed.

WiFi 7 Is Fully Supported.

Taoglas's background in antenna design permits the combination of all three commonly used WiFi bands. The table below shows the signal fidelities. Keep in mind that the connection between the WiFi transmitter and the WiFi speaker has to be accomplished via an FAKRA Code I format connector.

Taoglas provides a variety of radiation diagrams in the SPKW.46.8.01 data sheet. In general, the antenna is omnidirectional, which means that the speaker\'s physical placement does not affect signal strength. Furthermore, the maximum input power of 10 W allows the component to be used for other non-WiFi modulation schemes in the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands.

Powerful Audio Output Capabilities

The physical size of the SPKW.46.8.01 is about 101 x 101 x 20 mm, with a weight of 670 grams indicating a highly robust mechanical construction.

In the data sheet, Taoglas furthermore promises the following performance:

the speaker is engineered to deliver clear, balanced audio output. It supports 25W RMS-rated input power and up to 50W peak power handling, making it suitable for a wide range of audio applications.

The transmission of up to 25 V RMS input is handled via a board-to-wire connector of type DELPHI 12052832. Furthermore, four side-mounted screws enable and simplify fastening.

Conclusion

If a system needs both speaker and a high-quality WiFi antenna, Taoglas provides an affordable way to achieve design goals. Thanks to the combination of audio output and wireless transmitter, industrial design is simplified. This directly leads to a greatly reduced total cost of ownership.