Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) is an American

smart home ''SMart'' was a British CBBC television programme based on art, which began in 1994 and ended in 2009. The programme was recorded at BBC Television Centre in London. Previously it had been recorded in Studio A at Pebble Mill Studios in Birming ...

technology provider and manufacturer of universal

remote control A remote control, also known colloquially as a remote or clicker, is an consumer electronics, electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operat ...

s, IoT devices such as voice-enabled smart home hubs, smart thermostats, home sensors; as well as a white label digital assistant platform optimized for smart home applications, and other software and

cloud services Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to ISO. Essential characteristics ...

for device discovery,

fingerprinting A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...

and

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

. The company designs, develops, manufactures and ships products both under the "One For All" brand and as an OEM for other companies in the audio video, subscription broadcasting, connected home, tablet and smart phone markets. In 2015, it expanded its product and technology platform to include home automation, intelligent sensing and security. UEI's global headquarters is located in

Scottsdale, Arizona Scottsdale is a city in eastern Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott (chaplain), Winfield Scott, a retired Chaplain Corps (United States ...

with R&D offices in

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

, regional offices in

Enschede Enschede (; local ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the province of Overijssel and the Twente region of the eastern Netherlands. The east of the urban area reaches ...

(The Nederlands),

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(Brazil),

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

(India), San Mateo and

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(California), and

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(Ohio). In 2014 UEI was ranked 80 on Forbes' list of "America's Best Small Companies." Many of UEI's products use different low power wireless technologies such as

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

and

Zigbee Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and oth ...

(or other 802.15.4 communications). UEI is a member of different wireless industry alliances such as

Zigbee Alliance The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), formerly the Zigbee Alliance, is a group of companies that maintain and publish the Zigbee and Matter standard, along with several others. Membership Over the years, the Alliance's membership has gr ...

, Bluetooth SIG as well as

Wi-Fi Alliance The Wi-Fi Alliance is a non-profit organization that owns the Wi-Fi trademark. Manufacturers may use the trademark to brand products certified for Wi-Fi interoperability. It is based in Austin, Texas. History Early IEEE 802.11, 802.11 product ...

. UEI also offer

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such as UE878 and SDK to enable multi-protocol communication for different smart home devices such as leading Smart TVs.

Products

UEI is one of the world's largest manufacturers of remote controls, responsible for an estimated 30% global market share in home entertainment remotes. Under its Ecolink brand, it also makes home security and automation products such as motion and door/window entry sensors for DIY and professional home security markets and OEMs. UEI makes numerous products that use Zigbee,

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

technology. They are a member of the ZigBee Alliance, Bluetooth SIG and

QuickSet Cloud

QuickSet Cloud is Universal Electronics’ software product family including

web service A web service (WS) is either: * a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or * a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...

s and embedded SDK for simplifying discovery and universal control setup and operation in a

Acquisitions

In February 2009, UEI purchased all of

Zilog Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors, microcontrollers, and application-specific embedded System on a chip, system-on-chip (SoC) products. The company was founded in 1974 by Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann, who were soo ...

's software & IP assets related to

's universal remote control business, including all ROM code, software, and database of infrared codes. Zilog sold these assets for $31 million cash. In August 2015, UEI acquired Ecolink Intelligent Technology, a wireless home security and automation specialist. In May 2017, UEI further expanded by acquiring RCS Technology, a pioneer in

smart thermostat Smart thermostats are Wi-Fi thermostats that can be used with home automation and are responsible for controlling a home's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. They perform similar functions as a programmable thermostat as they allow the us ...

s and energy management.

Honors

In 2017,

National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), also known as the National Television Academy until 2007, is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of televisio ...

awarded UEI a

Technology & Engineering Emmy Award The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineer ...

for its contribution to "Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content."

Uyghur Labor

In 2021, Reuters reported that UEI had made a deal with officials in the

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC: previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads ...

to transport some 400 Uyghur workers to one of its plants. Reuters then reported that UEI terminated its relationship with a staffing agency that hired the workers. Three U.S. Senators wrote a letter "demanding answers" from UEI following the Reuters report.

References

{{reflist Electronics companies of the United States Consumer electronics