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Cognio Platform and Cognio OS

Overview

Cognio is a brand-new, next-generation audio, video, and control platform. Rather than evolving an existing product line, Symetrix designed Cognio from the ground up: new hardware, new firmware, new control, and new design software. The goal was to rethink what an AV and control platform can be in today's world.

The name says a lot about the idea behind it. Cognio combines two words: cognition (smart, knowledge, information) and IO (input and output). Put together, they describe the platform's defining principle: smart processing in every product.

Cognio Platform

The Cognio platform breaks with the traditional model of a single, dedicated processor surrounded by simple endpoints.

In a typical system today, one smart device (a DSP, core, or engine) does the work, while the endpoints (I/O boxes, network audio endpoints, and control screens) do very little on their own. Without the central processor, those endpoints are largely inert.

Cognio takes a different approach: every product in the platform is smart and contributes processing to the system. This single idea, sometimes described internally as "smart endpoints," is what makes Cognio different, and nearly every benefit of the platform follows from it.

Distributing processing across every device delivers five core benefits:

  • More capabilities from less hardware — Because every device can perform the full range of functions, you often need fewer dedicated boxes.
  • Effortless scalability — The same concepts, products, and software scale from a single small room to the largest installations.
  • Distributed processing — Processing for a space can be shared across devices, and a single device can run multiple independent spaces.
  • Control everywhere — Every product includes a built-in control engine, so you can control everything from anywhere.
  • A rethought design experience — Cognio DesignOps software discards traditional workflows to let you design faster and build control screens your customers will love.

Smart Processing in Every Product

Traditional products are built around dedicated hardware for each function: one chip for acoustic echo cancellation (AEC), another for DSP, another for network audio, another for control or USB. That approach works, but it limits how a device can scale. Adding features means adding hardware.

Cognio replaces those function-specific chips with a single general-purpose processor (for example, an Intel or ARM processor) that handles all of these functions. Every Cognio product, not just traditional DSPs, includes one of these processors, and every product runs the same operating system: Cognio OS.

Cognio OS

Because every product runs Cognio OS, every product has access to the same operating-system features. The only difference between products is how much of each feature a given product can provide, which depends on the capacity of its general-purpose processor.

Cognio OS features fall into two broad categories:

  • Audio processing — open-architecture DSP up to 96 kHz, software Dante, AEC, recording and playback, and paging.
  • Control processing — a built-in web server for bring-your-own-device control, automation, third-party drivers, Lua scripting, and control from external systems over a JSON API.

Allocating Processing

Within a single product, the available processing can be subdivided across these features. A large product might dedicate most of its capacity to traditional DSP, while a smaller product spreads its capacity more evenly across functions.

This allocation can also be dynamic. It is not fixed when the product is built. For example, if a design does not need AEC, you can turn AEC off and reclaim that processing for other capabilities.

What This Means for the Platform

A few principles summarize how the platform fits together:

  • All Cognio products can run all Cognio firmware features.
  • Products are differentiated by their hardware capabilities, not by which features they support.
  • Firmware features scale based on the capacity of the general-purpose processor in each product.
  • New product types and new OS features are easy to add, and because every product runs the same OS, every product can take advantage of new features as they are released.

Security

Cognio is a modern platform with modern security practices designed in from the beginning, rather than added later.

  • Communication protocols use default end-to-end encryption, validated with TLS using certificates.
  • Encrypted Dante is supported through Dante Director or Dante Domain Manager.
  • Cognio uses encrypted disk images, secure boot, and signed firmware.
  • Firmware updates and site files are transferred over secure FTP.
  • Common threat vectors such as Telnet and unencrypted FTP are shut down and are not available as access points.