Bridgetek is excited to announce the launch of our BT820B, the 5th Generation Embedded Video Engine (EVE), at the Embedded Exhibition in March 2025.
The launch includes our BT820B IC, as well as a range of development modules and supporting software toolchains. As industry trends lean towards larger displays with more complex User Interfaces (UI), it often involves a requirement to incorporate live video streaming too.
The BT820B’s enhanced features and capabilities provide designers with an effective solution to implement these advanced UIs easily and get their product to market in a short time.
For the past decade, the innovative EVE products have empowered designers to enhance the way that users interact with their products. The first device in the EVE family, the FT800, brought a unique approach to adding graphical touch-enabled UIs to existing and new products.
Designers were no longer restricted to MCUs with built-in graphics, avoiding unnecessary costs, complexity, re-design effort, and excessive time to market. Instead, they could easily add three key functions (Display, Touch and Audio) to whichever MCU was the best fit for their product, benefitting from features such as:
Since then, the EVE family has continually evolved, enabling designers to meet and exceed the latest expectations of their product’s end-users and UI requirements. To find out more about our EVE family, check out our Getting Started page.
As the capabilities and feature set of products increase, designers must support these in the UI whilst meeting growing expectations from users on the look, feel and ease of use. Three notable challenges which designers looking to embrace the latest UI trends face are:
Increasingly complex user interfaces require designers to look for more powerful graphics solutions without compromising ease of development and time to market
Combining live video with a touchscreen improves the user experience but is hindered by complexity and performance limitations in many display solutions
When updating and designing products with advanced user interfaces, ease of integration is vital in getting the product to market
Addressing these challenges is essential to allow designers to keep their product ahead of intense competition, but without the right tools and solutions, they present significant obstacles.
With the BT820B, designers get all the benefits of our earlier EVE devices but with powerful capabilities and enhanced feature set to help them achieve stunning UIs that will impress users and set their product apart from competitors.
Key features of the BT820B
The BT820B frame buffer architecture, combined with extensive storage and image formats, handles complex user interfaces with ease of applications such as medical equipment
The BT820B’s innovative touch tagging and tracking features allow designers to integrate UI control functionality on-screen with ease, while the wide range of capacitive touch controllers (CTP) supported allows designers the freedom and flexibility to choose the best touch panel for their application.
The BT820B features stereo audio output (via digital I2S or analogue Delta-Sigma PWM) in place of the mono output on earlier EVE devices. It also supports direct playback of .wav files. The enhanced audio engine allows sound generation and playback features to be easily incorporated into the end-product.
The BT820B supports direct video input and overlay of touch controls. Real-time video image processing provides image enhancement for applications such as video door entry and vehicle cameras.
The VM820C board and MN820 mini-module provide a rapid development solution for designers. The MN820 can also be used in final products to simplify the PCB design.
Bridgetek launched the Embedded Video Engine (EVE) with the first generation, FT800, in 2013. Graphical touch screens were revolutionizing the way that users interact with all kinds of everyday devices, but designers were facing challenges in implementing them. Existing approaches to adding these interfaces to products were complex, expensive, and involved significant re-design, often requiring a change to a high-end MCU.
Bridgetek EVE’s Milestones
With EVE, designers can add three key functions (Display, Touch and Audio) to their product using a single IC connected via SPI, retaining the product’s existing MCU. For new designs, they can select an MCU best suited to the product function without being limited to those with built-in graphics support. Innovative features of the EVE family include:
Today, Bridgetek is thrilled to announce the launch of the BT822, the 5th Generation Embedded Video Engine (EVE) device, which continues to revolutionize the use of color touch displays.
Over the past decade, expectations for user interfaces have increased significantly, with the evolution of the EVE product line allowing designers to embrace the latest trends. Some of the most recent challenges include:
To support the latest demands, the BT822 features a redesigned architecture which also boasts significant enhancements and new features that allow designers to meet and exceed the modern user interface expectations. One key objective was also to retain the characteristics which made EVE popular originally.
This new generation offers enhanced display resolution up to 1920×1200 via LVDS output, a new Frame Buffer architecture, an LVDS video input with real-time image processing engine, support for SD/MMC storage options and enhanced touch engine.
Block diagram of the BT822
PanL PD100 Display Screen 10.1” showing vibrant colours and graphics with UI-friendly icons (BRT Systems PanL Smart Living)
Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle with Live Video Streaming
Direct video input with real-time pre-processing -> ideal for Door Entry applications
Summary of Benefits by Industry and the type of Core Innovations the BT822 delivers for your product design
The advent of colour of touch displays has revolutionized devices and system control, offering significant benefits, particularly from the user’s perspective.
Heating Ventilation Air-Conditioning (HVAC) controls are an excellent example of this trend, with the design evolving from basic dials through
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens and fixed-segment LCDs, to full colour touch screens.
Conclusion
Integrating a colour graphical touch display into control panels, particularly for systems like HVAC, can greatly elevate the overall product experience for users.
Despite this, design engineers may be reluctant to embrace this change, anticipating complex hardware and software changes, steep learning
curves, and the challenges associated with crafting a high-quality user interface. In doing so, they can miss out on the opportunity to make their product much more appealing.
Fortunately, you need not fear. This is achieved easily and effectively with Bridgetek’s innovative EVE graphic controller solution; complemented by robust support tools and hardware evaluation boards. Design engineers can now surmount these obstacles, making the process of enhancing their product more accessible and straightforward.