Tag: CES 2022

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Wemo’s new Video Doorbell works exclusively with Apple’s HomeKit

Belkin-owned home automation brand Wemo has unveiled a new generation of smart home products, including a new Smart Video Doorbell with a 178-degree field of view and a 4-megapixel camera.

Built for Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video, the doorbell can easily be managed via the Home app on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, while the feed is analyzed directly from the user’s HomePod mini, Apple TV or iPad, eliminating the need for you to use the Wemo app. This change makes it easier to set up, update, and operate smart home devices on the Homekit network.

The doorbell’s video feed is end-to-end encrypted, and up to 10 days of motion-based footage can be stored on your iCloud. The doorbell can detect familiar people if they are tagged or recognized in the Photos or Home app and notify you accordingly directly on your mobile device.

Further, according to Wemo, the Doorbell features “enhanced” night vision and a feed that will remain clear even when zoomed in, allowing you to monitor any activity outside your door at odd hours.

It’s worth noting that you’ll need a pre-existing wired doorbell system to be able to set up Wemo’s Smart Video Doorbell.

Wemo’s Smart Video Doorbell is available to order directly from Belkin’s website starting today for a price of $249.99 USD (roughly $317 CAD).

Wemo is also revamping some of its existing products, including the Wemo Smart Plug, Smart Light Switch, and the Smart Dimmer to communicate via Matter over Thread. Adding support for Matter will allow Wemo’s products to communicate with other smart home accessories, regardless of their manufacturer, along with more security, faster response time and better connectivity.

Wemo says its new suite of smart plugs and accessories will be released in 25 countries sometime later this year.

In other Belkin-related news, the company’s Soundform Immerse Noise Cancelling Earbuds and Magnetic Phone Mount have been awarded the CES Innovation Award Honoree.

Image credit: Belkin

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Anker’s Nebula to launch new projector called Cosmos Laser 4K with Android TV

Anker’s sub-brand Nebula is launching a new projector called Cosmos Laser 4K.

The new projector runs Android TV 10.0, sports a pair of 30W speakers for games/movies and can project 4K images at 2400 ANSI lumens.

Like other Android TV 10.0 projectors, the device won’t be able to run Netflix natively, but Anker says that the Cosmos Laser comes with a 4K streaming dongle, allowing users to cast content from their smartphones.

Additional features include three-second autofocus, automatic keystone correction and eye-guard technology, which will protect kids or pets that might attempt to look directly into the bright bulb.

Anker will launch a Kickstarter on January 11th before shipping the Cosmos Laser 4K in March. The device will cost $2,199 USD ( about $2,796 CAD), which is expensive. In comparison, BenQ’s 4K Gaming Projector costs $1,850 CAD.

Source: Nebula Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Dell insists the touch bar on its new XPS 13 isn’t a touch bar

Dell unveiled the newest version of its popular XPS 13 laptop at CES 2022 with a few striking changes.

There’s a touch bar “capacitive touch function row” along the top edge of the keyboard and underneath it is a “haptic ForcePad” that goes from one end to the other.

At first glance, the new XPS 13 is striking and, in my opinion, it looks fantastic. But I can’t help worrying that some of the changes Dell made to the laptop might not be that great. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to try one yet, so I’m mostly judging from photos and details shared in hands-on pieces from various U.S. publications that did get to try out the XPS 13.

Let’s start with that function row. Dell insists it isn’t a touch bar, but as The Verge aptly points out, it’s a bar of things you can touch — ergo, touch bar.

Semantics aside, the new XPS 13’s touch bar isn’t a touch bar in the sense of Apple’s much-maligned MacBook Pro series. Dell’s take on the touch bar is to basically replace each physical function key with a capacitive touch button. That means you still have, for example, a dedicated escape key. It’s just not a physical button anymore.

I’ll withhold judgement until I can spend some hands-on time with the new XPS 13, but I am concerned about accidental button presses with this new touch bar.

Working our way down, we come to the keyboard, which boasts big, square keys with a minuscule gap between them. It looks nice, but I’m concerned about how practical the keyboard would be for typing and early comments from The Verge’s hands-on reinforce those concerns. The keys still have the same 1mm travel as last year’s XPS 13, but there’s more to a good keyboard than key travel.

Finally, the touchpad. On the surface, it looks like Dell did a good thing, but according to CNET’s hands-on, the actual touch area of the touchpad doesn’t extend all the way across the laptop. Instead, it stretches from the outside edge of one Alt key to the other. While that’s still quite a large touchpad offering, the lack of indicators where the touchpad ends and the palm rest begins will likely prove confusing for some users.

Functionally, the touchpad sounds more like Apple’s MacBook trackpad. It doesn’t actually ‘press’ when you click it — instead, it mimics the feeling of clicking with haptics.

Again, it’s too early to say one way or another whether the changes Dell made to the XPS 13 are good, bad or otherwise. There are reasons to be concerned, sure, but I’d wait for reviews first. Dell says the XPS 13 will start shipping worldwide in the spring and the expected starting price is $1,199 USD (about $1,523 CAD).

You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Images credit: Dell

Source: The Verge, CNET

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Mobile Syrup

TCL reveals a range of new products at CES

TCL unveiled a bunch of new tech at its virtual CES 2022 press conference, including new mini LED TVs, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more, along with announcing the company’s new brand slogan — “Inspire Greatness.”

TCL’s new TV lineup will now adopt a faster 144Hz refresh rate for smoother and more responsive gameplay along with mini LED technology for better control over display brightness, deeper blacks, a higher contrast ratio and better power efficiency.

“TCL is aiming to become the top player in the Mini LED TV sector in the coming years with higher production standards, higher energy efficiency and premium image performance,” reads the company’s release about the new TVs.

The company says more information about the new TVs will come out later in Q1, 2022.

Apart from new TVs, TCL is also releasing new TCL 30 XE 5G and 30 V 5G handsets exclusively in the United States, with the former sporting a 6.5-inch 90Hz display and the latter featuring a 6.67-inch 90Hz display.

In addition,  TCL will soon release six new tablets with three of them designed specifically for children. TCL calls these kid-centric tablets its TKEE series, and it will feature a Mini, Mid and Max version of the device.  The other three are namely the TCL NXTPAPER 10s that the company says has a paper-like eye-friendly display, the TCL Tab 8 4G which is a lightweight tablet ideal for students and the TCL Tab 10L, a tablet designed with ‘entertainment’ at its core.

Adding to the lineup is TCL’s first-ever laptop. The sleek and lightweight 14-inch TCL Book 14 Go has a solid 12-hour battery life along with 4G LTE support and will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7C processor, which we usually see in Chromebooks.

Learn more about TCL’s upcoming product releases here.

You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Image credit: TCL

Source: TCL

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Mobile Syrup

Intel says it started shipping first-gen Arc GPUs to manufacturers

Intel’s Arc GPUs are getting a little closer to reality. Alongside a wealth of CPU announcements at CES 2022, Intel took a little time to provide an update on its anticipated entry into the GPU field.

During its CES 2022 keynote, Intel revealed that it had started shipping its first-gen ‘Alchemist‘ GPUs to manufacturers of desktop and laptop systems, which include Acer, Asus, Clevo, Dell, Gigabyte, Haier, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, MSI and NEC.

The Arc GPUs will mark a significant shift for Intel as they make the company’s new Xe graphics architecture available in discrete laptop and desktop GPUs. Xe, and previous Intel graphics solutions, have typically been available as integrated options added to the company’s CPUs. While integrated graphics can be capable enough for most people, they often don’t stack up to dedicated, discrete GPUs in certain workloads or in gaming.

Intel talks a big game about Arc as well. The company said that Arc graphics will offer “industry-leading” features, such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), which Intel describes as an upscaling technology powered by artificial intelligence. Another benefit to Arc will be support for Intel’s ‘Deep Link‘ technology, which should provide performance and efficiency boosts by allowing Intel CPUs and GPUs to work together.

While it’s good to see Intel’s Arc plans moving forward, The Verge points out that we’re still missing a lot of information. Manufacturers may have their hands on Arc, but there’s no word on when they’ll release computers with Intel GPUs. Further, we don’t know if or when Intel will make discrete Arc GPUs available for people to buy and integrate into their own custom-built rigs. Intel also hasn’t shared any details about specifications or cost.

That being said, Intel also shared at CES 2022 that it will require discrete Arc GPUs as part of its Evo certification program for laptops using Intel 12th Gen Core H-Series chips. With Evo laptops expected to start shipping in the first half of 2022, we may get to see Intel Arc out in the world sooner rather than later.

You can read more about Intel at CES 2022 here, or check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Source: Intel Via: The Verge

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Intel details new 12th Gen Core mobile processors at CES 2022

Intel kicked off CES 2022 by announcing its 12th Gen Intel Core Mobile chips, which include what the company boldly claims is the “fastest mobile processor ever.”

There are 28 12th gen mobile processors joining 22 desktop processors, with Intel’s Core i9-12900HK leading the pack and running on the Intel 7 process (Intel’s new, confusing name for its 10nm ‘SuperFin Enhanced’ process). The company also detailed new 65- and 35-watt 12th Gen desktop processors and Core U- and P-series mobile processors aimed at ultra-thin-and-light designs.

The Core i9-12900HK is the flagship of Intel’s 12th Gen mobile CPUs and heads the H-series processors aimed at gaming rigs and other high-performance mobile machines. It also bears the crown of “fastest mobile processor ever created,” although it remains to be seen how this (and other 12th Gen CPUs) stack up to the competition in real-world testing.

Intel’s new chips utilize the ‘P-core’ and ‘E-core’ designs the company first detailed at its October Innovation event. As a refresher, P- and E-cores represent performance and efficiency, respectively, and should help the 12th Gen mobile chips better deliver performance when needed, and scale back to conserve power in other situations. The 12th Gen H-series CPUs offer up to 5GHz clock speeds, 14 cores comprised of up to six P-cores and eight E-cores, and 20 threads total.

The company says its H-series CPUs offer up to 28 percent “faster gaming” than last year’s Core i9-11980HK. Additionally, Intel says users “may see up to 43% higher performance in 3D rendering gen-over-gen.”

Moreover, the new CPUs offer support for DDR5 and DDR4 memory, integrated Wi-Fi 6E, Thunderbolt 4 and more.

Other announcements from Intel include updates to its Evo certification platform, with over 100 co-engineered designs sporting 12th Gen Intel chips (including some with foldable displays) are expected to start passing Evo verification soon. These designs include Intel P- and U-series chips, and for the first time, H-series chips. Intel says it expects most of these products to be available for purchase in the first half of 2022.

On the desktop side, Intel announced new ‘Laminar Coolers’ for its 65-watt processors alongside the 22 new desktop CPUs unveiled at CES.

Finally, Intel wrapped things up with some details about its vPro business platform, which include a new vPro Enterprise platform, vPro and Intel Evo designs and a small-business-oriented vPro Essentials platform.

Those interested can learn more about Intel’s CES announcements here. You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Images credit: Intel

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Mobile Syrup

Sony’s new TV camera will tell you if your children are sitting too close to the TV

Sony’s latest innovation unveiled at CES 2022 is a webcam designed for TVs, and while that in itself isn’t that interesting, some of its features are.

The Bravia Cam is what Sony is calling its new TV webcam that will come bundled with the company’s 2022 lineup, though it’s also available to purchase separately. The smart webcam can detect where and when you’re sitting and adjusts the television’s settings accordingly, including TV brightness, volume and sound balance, which can tune the audio for your relative position in front of the TV.

The Bravia Cam can also help you save electricity, as it will automatically dim the TV after it detects that you’ve moved away from it. You can set the dimming to take place within as little as a minute of you leaving the room, or you can set it to go off after an hour.

However, one of the main features the camera offers is especially useful if you have children. You can set up a proximity alert that will automatically pop up on the screen if the camera detects that someone is sitting too close to the TV.

Not repositioning to a farther distance causes the TV screen to blackout until the individual moves back to a safe viewing distance. By default, this setting will be on and can likely be configured to your needs. The camera can also be used to control and navigate the TV with gestures, though that isn’t that novel of a feature.

Sony hasn’t revealed the pricing or the release date for its new Bravia Cam.

You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Image credit: Sony

Source: Sony Via: The Verge

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Moen introduces a handle-free smart faucet at CES 2022

A new smart faucet will soon hit the market, and it’s completely hands-free.

The Moen Smart Faucet with Motion Control was introduced by fixture company Moen at CES 2022.

The faucet features a sensor that can turn on hot, warm, or cold water through the use of motions. It’s used in conjunction with the Moen Smart Water App, which allows users to set water temperatures.

It also has all the features of the older version of the Moen Smart Faucet offers, including voice-activated controls.

Options with handles are also available. The handle and handle-free styles will be available to purchase in April. Prices start at $675 USD (roughly $857 CAD) and vary on the various finishes and options available. MobileSyrup has reached out for more information regarding Canadian pricing.

You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Image source: Moen

Source: The Verge 

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Your old smartphones can double as a smart home hub with this product

If you have a drawer full of old smartphones that haven’t seen the light of day for a while, an Italian startup called Domethics’ new Internet of things (IoT) device might just give them a purpose.

Domethics’ new product, Adriano, is a smart home hub that uses your old smartphone/tablet as its main screen to control devices in and around your house through a dedicated app. It uses different communication protocols, including Z-Wave, ZigBee, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, allowing it to communicate and control devices like smart lights/bulbs, smart thermostats, electrical outlets and more.

Domethics’ Adriano has already been awarded the CES Innovation Award Honoree and is expected to launch a Kickstarter next week.

The device functions wirelessly, thanks to integrated batteries that work in tandem with your old smartphone’s battery, along with the ability to function without Wi-Fi, in which case, the device relies on the phone’s 4G or 5G networks to communicate, making it a uniquely portable smart home hub.

Further, Adriano features motion sensors on its front that turn on your old smartphone’s camera, allowing you to monitor what’s happening around it, similar to other smart home hubs like the Amazon Echo Show 10.

Adriano can be controlled via voice, gestures or through its dedicated app and is made with recycled plastic.

Check out this video to learn more about Adriano and how it can give a purpose to old smartphones that otherwise won’t make it out of your drawers.

You can check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Image credit: Domethics

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Kensington details new accessories designed for Surface, Apple devices at CES

Kensington, which makes a variety of tech accessories from laptop stands to docking stations, detailed several new products for Microsoft Surface, Apple devices and more at CES 2022.

For Surface, Kensington announced it collaborated with Microsoft on a series of ‘Designed for Surface‘ (DFS) products that “maximize the potential” of Surface devices. Kensington’s DFS products include a new ‘BlackBelt‘ rugged case for the Surface Pro 8 with military-grade drop protection, a Surface Laptop Riser compatible with the Laptop Go and Surface Book and several new docking stations. The BlackBelt case also comes in a variant with a built-in smart card reader.

Other DFS products include a new ‘MagPro Elite’ privacy screen for the Surface Pro 8 and a variety of Surface locks for securing devices.

On the Apple side, Kensington announced new versions of its StudioDock iPad docking station that support the iPad Pro (2021), iPad Air (2020) and other versions of Apple’s popular tablet. There’s also the new ‘StudioCaddy,’ a versatile docking solution that can hold and charge multiple Apple devices at the same time, including an iPhone, AirPods, iPad and MacBook (pictured up top). Finally, Kensington introduced versions of its MagPro Elite privacy screens that work with the new 2021 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

Rounding out the company’s CES 2022 announcements were a few new Thunderbolt 4 docking stations, the SD5700T and the SD5750T (DFS).

Those interested can check out all of Kensington’s products on the company’s website. The Designed for Surface items can be found here and Apple-specific products can be found here.

Images credit: Kensington