This is the week of the big Consumer Electronics Show (CES). While Amazon doesn’t typically make many announcements at CES, there are usually a few noteworthy things related to Alexa, Echos, Ring, and other Amazon brands that come out of the show. Here is a roundup of the top news from Amazon at CES. Read more ›
One of the most interesting 3rd-party Alexa devices to come out of CES 2019 is easily the new Lenovo Smart Tab line of Android tablets with an included speaker dock. They are the first 3rd-party tablets to use Amazon’s Show Mode feature with hands-free Alexa built-in, which essentially turns them into an Echo Show when docked. Unlike Amazon’s own Show Mode Dock for their Fire tablets, which is nothing more than a charging stand that triggers Show Mode, Lenovo has put Dolby Atmos speakers and 3 far-field microphones in the dock to make this a true alternative to the Echo Show. Read more ›
SiliconDust, makers of the HDHomeRun line of network tuners, have announced a pair of new DVR devices at CES 2019 that give the Amazon Fire TV Recast and Tablo DVRs a serious run for their money. The all-new HDHomeRun SCRIBE DUO is an all-in-one solution that combines a pair of over-the-air tuners with a 1 TB DVR hard drive for recordings. It merges all of SiliconDust’s existing OTA services and features into a single sleek device that will surely become the best first device to buy for anyone entering the HDHomeRun ecosystem of cord-cutting solutions, all while maintaining the flexibility that differentiates HDHomeRun from competing DVRs. For new or existing HDHomeRun users, SiliconDust has also announced the HDHomeRun SERVIO, which adds 2 TBs of DVR storage to any HDHomeRun setup, while simultaneously eliminating the need to have a PC or NAS as your DVR server. Read more ›
Amazon has announced a couple of big car navigation related partnerships for Alexa at CES 2019. The first is a partnership with Telenav, a connected car navigation platform. The second is a partnership with HERE Technologies, who’s navigation systems are in over 100 million cars. In both cases, Alexa will now be integrated into each companies future products. While this doesn’t directly affect consumers today, it means that Alexa will be found on many more car navigation systems in the near future as a baked-in component from the start. In the case of the HERE partnership, it also means Alexa will have access to much more mapping data, which will improve Alexa’s direction related queries outside of the car as well.
Sengled is stepping up their smart lighting lineup in a significant way at CES 2019. Among the new products is a 100-watt equivalent smart bulb that puts out 1500 lumens of brightness, which is double what you get out of most smart bulbs on the market. There’s also a new smart flood light with a built-in motion sensor in the middle that can be used to detect room occupancy for automatic lighting control or to alert you of intruders while you’re away from home. Those two new lights require Sengled’s existing hub to function, but they’ve also announced a new line of WiFi smart bulbs that don’t require a hub. Read more ›
Thanks to competitive pricing and a wide assortment of good products, TP-Link has quickly become one of the leading smart home device manufacturers. They’ve announced a series of new products at CES 2019, including smart doorbells, security cameras, and smart plugs, but the most interesting new device is a smart light switch with a built-in voice assistant that you talk to through its integrated speaker and microphones. Read more ›
The JBL Link Bar, which was announced last May at Google I/O, is an interesting device that puts a full-fledged Android TV media player into a soundbar. Despite rumors of a Fall 2018 release, the company wasn’t able to release the $399.95 soundbar and optional $299.95 subwoofer before the year ended. JBL has now announced at CES 2019 that the Link Bar will be available some time this Spring. The 100-watt soundbar will double as a Google Assistant smart speaker, thanks to its far-field microphones, and house 3 HDMI ports for input switching.
Tablo has made a couple of new announcements for CES 2019. The first is the release of a new product called the Tablo QUAD which is an over-the-air DVR that packs in 4-tuners, which is twice as many as in their existing Tablo DUAL models. It doesn’t have any built-in storage, but it does feature a user accessible 2.5″ internal hard drive slot, which is a first for a Tablo device, that gives customers a sleeker alternative to using an external drive connected to the device’s USB port. Also being announced is a new automatic commercial skipping feature. Read more ›
NVIDIA showed off their big format gaming display (BFGD) a year ago at CES 2018 with the expectation that it would be released in the summer. The summer came and went but now HP has announced that it will be released in February for $4,999. While NVIDIA’s tech will power the display, multiple manufacturers are expected to create their own versions of the BFGD. HP’s Omen X Emperium 65 will be the first and it features a 144 Hz high refresh-rate 65-inch HDR panel with what is essentially a Shield TV built-in. Read more ›
Samsung has announced that their 2018 and 2019 TVs will be gaining an Apple iTunes app as well as support for AirPlay 2, the latest version of Apple’s proprietary casting protocol. This marks the first time that Apple iTunes content has ever been available on non-Apple hardware, outside of Windows PCs. If there ever has been an indicator that content is king and hardware is a distant second when it comes to streaming media, it is this new partnership. Read more ›
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