Smartphone maker Xiaomi has just announced its plan to bring the NavIC technology in Redmi branded smartphones. The company teamed up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for its regional Navigation Satellite System. Xiaomi revealed that Qualcomm has enabled this technology on some of its Snapdragon SoC chips. The smartphone maker revealed that it will bring this support to multiple smartphones across different price segments. To clarify, all the necessary hardware seems to be in place with support from Qualcomm. Xiaomi was able to create the necessary software with help from Qualcomm and ISRO. We have reached out to Xiaomi to clarify if the technology will reach older Xiaomi devices.
Xiaomi smartphones to feature NavIC technology from ISRO
As part of the announcement, this move will further extend Xiaomi’s Make in India commitment. It also clarified that Xiaomi is the first major smartphone maker to work with ISRO to bring NavIC to smartphones. For some context, ISRO developed NavIC in India. Talking about NavIC, it is a regional geo-positioning system. The system is designed to provide accurate positioning in India and 1500km around the country. It uses a total of 7 satellites where three are in geostationary orbit over the Indian ocean. The remaining four are in geosynchronous orbit. ISRO claims that NavIC will be able to provide a location with an accuracy “better than 20 meters.”
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NavIC will allow for accurate positioning and location mapping in remote, difficult to reach areas. It will allow precise timing along with voice and visual navigation. Dr. K Sivan, the ISRO Chairman marked this as a critical move to make make use of space technology. ISRO is also eager to make NacIC accessible to everyone for daily use. Sivan also expressed his appreciation for Qualcomm for enabling the NavIC support on its Snapdragon chipsets.
Manu Kumar Jain, Global Vice President of Xiaomi and Managing Director of Xiaomi India issued a statement. Jain added, “We are extremely proud of the sophisticated geo-positioning tech which ISRO has devised, and even more proud to integrate it into several Xiaomi devices. We also thank our partner Qualcomm Technologies for enabling support in their chipsets as we bring it first to the Redmi smartphone this year.”
