Whether the Black & Decker brand conjures images of power tools or home appliances such as the Dustbuster, you probably don’t think of it in the context of the smart home. That could soon change.

The company is developing two devices that can be used together or apart. Pria is a digital assistant designed to help seniors age in place, instead of moving into a nursing home or an assisted-living center. Omni is a new mesh Wi-Fi router that leverages what Pria can do, but it can also operate on its own as a high-end home network.

Pria is a voice-recognizing digital assistant with a video component, but it’s optimized for home healthcare—particularly for the elderly and the younger generation helping to care for them. It’s designed to be as non-invasive as possible (it’s HIPAA compliant), while allowing a caregiver to monitor the person’s activity so they can ensure they’re taking their medications, drinking enough water, going to the bathroom, getting enough exercise, and the like, without needing to deploy cameras and motions sensors all around the house or forcing the person to wear anything.

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It’s not often we celebrate features missing from a product, but a new video doorbell from Netatmo comes without a common one: additional monthly fees.

The new Netatmo Smart Video Doorbell features a microSD card slot and records all video locally instead of sending it to the cloud.

That’s great news for anyone trying to avoid paying monthly fees for video cloud storage, which quickly add up. The Nest doorbell costs $229, for example, but after five years of use it will have cost you an additional $250 in cloud storage.

Even though Netatmo’s video is stored locally, it can still be accessed remotely. When you start up the Netatmo app and look at stored clips, you’re accessing the doorbell and playing the clips from there rather than via a cloud storage service.

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On paper, Google has all the ingredients to deliver a killer streaming TV player. It has a powerful software platform in Android, a first-rate voice assistant in Google Assistant, and a knack for designing slick software and hardware.

What we’ve ended up with instead is Android TV, a platform that’s gotten some traction on smart TVs and cable boxes, but hasn’t been a hit on standalone streaming players. Devices like the Nvidia Shield TV and the Xiaomi Mi Box S offer some niche appeal, and Android TV has always offered some interesting ideas, but it’s never met its potential as Google put more energy into Chromecast as a consumer streaming option.

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Cambridge Audio invited us to its CES 2019 suite at the Hard Rock Hotel yesterday to hear its ALVA TT turntable, the first of its kind to stream high-resolution audio over Bluetooth using the aptX HD codec.

Named after the inventor of the record player—Thomas Alva Edison—the ALVA TT is as beautiful to look at as it is to listen to. The turntable digitizes the analog audio that its stylus picks up and streams it in 24-bit resolution and at a 48kHz sampling rate to Bluetooth audio devices that also support aptX HD.

Certain models of headphones support aptX HD, and Cambridge demoed the turntable with a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-DSR9BT as well as one of its own Edge-series amplifiers. The turntable is designed to match the aesthetic of those amps.

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The TV industry has largely ignored Apple’s Airplay streaming technology and its HomeKit smart home platform—until now.

That all changed at CES when many of the biggest manufacturers—including LG, Sony, Samsung, and Vizio—announced plans to support both technologies. You can find a complete list on Apple’s website. So far, however, Vizio stands alone in pledging such support for at least some of its existing sets, dating back to its 2017 2016 models, when Vizio's SmartCast platform was first introduced.

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With its intriguing “Future of Sound” presentation on the floor of CES, Sony is once again banging the drum for multi-channel audio. This time, with a concept it calls 360 Reality Audio.

Sony engineers are pushing an object-based musical environment that, like Dolby Atmos and DTS -X, places sound in a seamless 360-degree spherical pattern that can move the beats over your head as well as around your shoulders, “making it a completely new music experience.”

There’s one big difference: If all goes according to plan, “360 Reality Audio will win more favor with “the modern music fan who lives on headphones” rather than with the audiophile geek willing to clutter up a room with a huge array of speakers,  a Sony spokesperson said.

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Smart homes are the way of the future, but to add a little extra control to your lights and electronics, you don't need to buy all-new smart devices. Smart plugs can replicate the functionality of expensive bulbs and appliances, and today you grab a pair for cheap: Aukey's Wi-Fi Smart Plug two-pack is just $20Remove non-product link today on Amazon with the code AUKEY4AP, down from a $28 MSRP and a couple dollars cheaper than their previous all-time low.

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A touch-sensitive in-wall outlet? Why would anyone need that? Well, if you’re worried about your child sticking a fork in an unused outlet, you can shut off the power to that outlet with a touch of your finger. An LED switches off to confirm your choice. And if you find the LEDs to be too bright, you can dim them.

But independent capacitive touch control is just one of the features ConnectSense has crammed into this outlet. The company brought over all the features that made its ConnectSense so great, and then added even more. You can control the outlet via Wi-Fi or with a ZigBee hub. You can use voice commands (Alexa or Google Assistant) and operate the outlets independently according to a schedule or with the Connect Sense app. The outlet is also HomeKit compatible.

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If you’re a Ring owner frustrated by the lack of Google Assistant support, help may be on the way. In an interview at CES on Tuesday, Ring founder and chief inventor Jamie Siminoff said one of the tasks facing him is expanding support for third-party products.

“I think we’re going to see over the next few years a lot of growth in the connecting of other products,” he said. “So at Ring you’re going to see us connecting with a lot of other third-party products where they’ve done a great job of building those things, like locks.”

Some of that is already happening. At CES this week, Ring announced new support for its Ring Alarm system and smart locks from Kwikset, Schlage and Yale.

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Smart lighting controls are all over the CES show floor this year, but Iotty has one of the most beautiful. It’s similar to the Noon Lighting System we recently fawned over with regard to its glass touchscreen, but where Noon’s Extension switches are ordinary plastic, every Iotty switch looks beautiful.

The switches—available in single-, double-, and triple-gang configurations—replace both your existing switch and its switch cover with a plate of tempered glass. A dimmable backlight casts a glow on the wall behind the glass, making the switch easy to find in a darkened room.

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Nuvvyo, makers of the Tablo over-the-air DVR, are updating their quad-tuner model with better Wi-Fi, a new look, and—most surprisingly—internal hard drive support.

Tablo doesn’t connect directly to your television. Instead, it connects to your Wi-Fi network and streams video to the Tablo app on smart TVs, streaming players, game consoles, mobile devices, and computers. That way, a single antenna can provide over-the-air broadcast channels to any room in the house. The Tablo Quad can play or record up to four broadcast channels at a time.

Whereas Tablo’s previous quad-tuner DVR only supported single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, the new Tablo Quad supports 802.11ac, which allows for faster speeds on the 5GHz band of newer routers.

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Google Assistant will soon be able to act as an interpreter, working as a go-between for natural conversations between initially 27 languages. Think of it as your own personal translator in your pocket.

It’s a pretty neat addition to the increasingly useful Google Assistant and will be rolling out over the next few weeks but I got a chance to try it out at CES in Las Vegas this week.

You jump into interpretation mode by asking Google, say, “Hey Google, be my French translator.” When I did that, the Google HomeHub smart display at a cafe Google had set up woke up and waited for my first words.

“I’d like a macaroon, please,” I said. (The cafe only had macaroons)

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If current Smart Displays are too big for your liking, Lenovo’s new Smart Clock might be your jam. The Google Assistant-powered display isn’t just small enough to fit on your nightstand—it’s barely bigger than the smartphone in your pocket.

With a 4-inch 480x800 touch screen, the Lenovo Smart Clock is the smallest smart display this side of the Amazon Echo Spot. And with a 113.88 x 79.2mm frame, it’s sure to fit just about anywhere (as long as there’s an outlet within reach). If those dimensions seem super small, they are—by comparison, the smaller Pixel 3 measures 145.6 x 68.2mm.

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With Comcast supplying data to its customers through its broadband services and gateways, it’s now getting into the business of data protection: The Xfinity xFi Advanced Security is a $5.99/month service that Comcast will launch this quarter to protect any connected device in a customer’s home.

While companies like BitDefender manufacture devices like the BitDefender Box to shield home devices from external hacks, Comcast plans to use hardware that the customer may already own. Comcast said at the CES 2019 show in Las Vegas that it’s tying Xfinity xFi Advanced Security to its existing xFi Gateway, which is already in 15 million homes.

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Kwikset has quite a few smart entry lock brands under its umbrella, including the Kevo, SmartCode, Obsidian, and Convert series. Today we can add two more brands to the list: Halo, Kwikset’s first Wi-Fi connected smart lock, and Aura, an all-new Bluetooth lock.

Halo is aimed at consumers looking for a simple connected lock that doesn’t require a smart home hub or bridge. Using Wi-Fi enables the Halo to connect directly to the consumer’s router, at which point they can control it with a new smartphone app or integrate it into a broader smart home system.

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Signify, formerly Philips Lighting, is once again expanding its lineup of outdoor Philips Hue lighting products. The company is showing three new wall-mounted fixtures and a Hue Outdoor sensor that can turn on any group of Hue lights—indoor or out—when someone walks by.

The battery-powered, weather-resistant, wireless sensor can be mounted outdoors and programmed via the Hue app to trigger any collection of Philips Hue lighting. This is both a convenience—because outdoor lights are invariably controlled by switches inside the house—and a security feature that could deter a would-be intruder from hanging around.

Motion-activated outdoor lights are common enough, but seeing lights come on inside the house at the same time might convince a miscreant that the home is occupied even if it isn’t.

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Leviton is expanding its range of smart home switches and outlets with a new Wi-Fi dimmer switch with Amazon Alexa built in.

The Decora Voice Dimmer will allow home owners to control their lights with their voice, and it works with all the other things that Amazon Alexa supports. For example, users will be able to say “Alexa, dim the lights to 60 percent,” or “Alexa, turn off the kitchen light.”

Leviton already sells Wi-Fi light switches in the Decora range and the new dimmer can be integrated into routines and schedules through the My Leviton control app. Because the switches are all networked, it’s also possible to issue a single command—“Alexa, turn off the lights”—to control all the lights in every room connected through a Wi-Fi Decora switch.

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Few of us can afford to hang a masterpiece on our wall, but with a Meural Canvas and an annual subscription fee, many of us can rotate through a library of 30,000 images of fine art.

Netgear acquired Meural in August, 2018, following an earlier strategic investment, and the company is showing off its third-generation digital smart frame at CES. It’s available in your choice of four modular frames (black, white, light wood, and dark wood) and in two sizes: the 27-inch original and a new 21.5-inch model.

The smaller frame can be placed on an optional easel. Netgear says both frames are based on customized IPS panels specifically designed for the display of art and photography. An algorithm controls how the artwork is displayed, automatically handling gamma correction, color correction, and backlight level.

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Sony’s big CES news is that it’s set to deliver 8K UHD resolution this year via its new Z9G smart TVs. Available in 85- and 98-inch flavors, the LED-backlit LCD TVs are designed to deliver immersive experiences in larger living spaces.

Details related to the audio capabilities of these 8K TVs are a bit muddy at the moment. Sony talks about about planar technology, but then mentions four speakers—not drivers or actuators—placed at the top and bottom of the TV. The images don’t give a lot of way, but Sony TVs always sound great, and the Z9G should be no exception.

Sony

The mis-spelling in the title is deliberate. What else could we do when a company announces at CES four new lines of headphones called SOCL, MTRO, ACTV, and ELIT? Just in case that's not clear, we're talking social, metro, active, and elite -- the intended market segments. 

The SOCL (shown above) are in-ear headphones that are available in a variety of fun colors and because of the in-ear design, also block noise. They're available in both wired and Bluetooth versions.

TCL

Netgear was one of the first router manufacturers to embrace Wi-Fi mesh technology, and now it will be among the first to offer a Wi-Fi mesh system based on Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax).

The system will support 12 concurrent data streams to deliver four times the capacity per node compared to previous Orbi systems. Netgear says it will support gigabit internet access speed across the entire network (your internet access speed will ultimately be determined by your ISP, of course; gigabit internet access is something of a rarity for most folks).

Like the original Orbi, this is a tri-band system operating one network on the 2.4GHz frequency band and one on the 5GHz band. A second 5GHz network is dedicated to data backhaul, supporting four spatial streams in each direction.

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Add Arlo to the list of companies selling a DIY-install smart-home security system. The company, best known for its security cameras, will launch its system in the second half of 2019 and it’s centered around a clever all-in-one sensor unit.

The Arlo Multi-Sensor packs a magnetic sensor for detecting doors and windows opening and closing, a passive infrared sensor for movement detection, a moisture sensor for detecting water leaks, a temperature sensor, and a microphone.

That last one is capable of identifying the sound of a smoke or Carbon Monoxide alarm and, if it hears one, alerting the user to it effectively brings app alerts to older, non-smart detectors.

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This is the first time Resideo (pronounced “re-sid-ee-o”) will be on the CES show floor, showing new products following last year’s spinoff from parent company Honeywell. Resideo will unveil two new T-Series smart thermostats that will be marketed under Honeywell Home brand: The Honeywell Home T9 (for consumers) and T10 Pro (for professional installers).

Both devices build on the capabilities of earlier Honeywell thermostats, specifically the Lyric. The Lyric was short on features as compared to higher-end competitors such as Nest and Ecobee, but you couldn’t go wrong for the price: We named the Lyric T5 our favorite budget thermostat last year.

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Arlo has the first smart-home security camera to capture and stream footage in 4K and TechHive got a chance to check it out at CES in Las Vegas.

At four times the resolution of existing high-definition cameras, the new Arlo Ultra 4K holds the potential to see additional information in captured footage, such as a car license plate or a clearer look at someone who’s on your property but shouldn’t be.

It’s slightly larger than Arlo’s existing outdoor camera. It has several new features, in addition to the 4K image sensor, such as an integrated spotlight and dual microphones for better audio, but like the current model it still runs on a battery and installation is as easy as snapping it onto a magnetic mount.

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TP-Link is best known for building routers, but the company is rapidly expanding into the smart home with its Kasa Smart product line. In fact, the company says it has already shipped more than 6 million smart devices, and that it handles 50 million cloud interactions every day.

Everything in the Kasa Smart Home line connects via Wi-Fi, eliminating the need to also have a smart home hub or Wi-Fi bridge. The company announced seven new products at CES, including a video doorbell equipped with a 2K image sensor capable of high dynamic range (HDR) video.

The Kasa Smart Video Doorbell is outfitted with infrared LEDs for night vision, and it has an integrated microphone for full-duplex two-way conversations with the visitor at your door. A quad-core processor supports an AI engine that can detect and identify faces to alert you when family members arrive or if a stranger is lurking on your porch.

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Roku has announced that it’s developing an 8K hardware reference design that TCL will be the first to license, with a delivery date in late 2019. The company says it’s also expanding its 4K HDR reference design to include far-field microphones for hand-free voice search and control, and that TCL will be the first to deliver TVs based on that design.

It’s unclear if the new TCL TVs Roku is describing are the 4K 6-series and 8K 8-series TVs that TCL just announced. The spec sheet for the 6-series mentions an “enhanced remote [that] lets you use your voice to quickly find your favorite entertainment,” while the materials released for the 8-series describes an “integrated always-on far-field mic array.” We’ll update this story when we get clarification.

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Buying smart home plugs and outlets is a “one size fits all” experience, so the clever Swidget smart wall outlet with interchangeable inserts caught our eye ahead of CES.

Retailing for only $40 and launching Monday, the outlet can be almost whatever you need, just by swapping out a removable insert in the center of the outlet. At launch, inserts are available to add a USB charger, a nightlight, or an emergency light to the outlet.

The inserts, which can be swapped in and out at any time, also enable outlet control based on various smart home connectivity protocols, including Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, and ZigBee. Swidget says additional inserts are coming, including motion sensors, aromatherapy modules, a real-time video camera, an air-quality sensor, and a carbon-monoxide sensor. The best part is they’ll cost only $6 each.

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TCL has said it will ship 8K Roku TVs equipped with HDMI 2.1 in 2019, but the only specific model the company has announced at CES so far is a new entry in its 4K UHD 6-series.

The 75-inch 75R615 Roku TV will feature a 160-zone full-array LED backlight when it ships later this year. It will support Dolby Vision and HDR10 HDR and sell for less than $1,800. It’s now available for pre-order at Best Buy.

TCL says its high-end TVs will use mini-LED and quantum dot technology, but don’t confuse mini-LED with the self-emitting micro-LED tech that Samsung uses in its “The Wall” series of gargantuan TVs. Mini-LED technology will eventually allow thousands of backlight elements, compared to the hundreds currently deployed in its 6-series sets.

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Hisense’s new dual-image TV is probably not what you think. The name conjures dual displays, but it’s actually a technology that promises to make remarkable improvements on the most critical shortcomings of LED-backlit LCD TVs: Backlight bleed, and grayish blacks.

It’s all due to the clever implementation of a second LCD layer—a grayscale 1080P layer, in this case—to filter and control the backlight’s brightness before it ever reaches the primary 4K UHD color LCD layer.

Major props to the engineer who conceived this idea, and to the team that must have figured out how to eliminate the parallax artifacts that can occur when you stack LCDs that way. Combined with quantum dot color and 2,900 nits of peak brightness, the whole deal forms what the company is calling ULED XD. Alas, it will be available only in China at launch.

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TP-Link is wholeheartedly embracing the next-generation of wireless networking, dubbed Wi-Fi 6 (the common name for technology based on the IEEE 802.11ax standard). The company announced a slew of new products at CES 2019, including the Deco X10 Wi-Fi mesh router and the super-powerful Archer AX11000 gaming router.

The Deco X10 is a tri-band router that will deliver wireless throughput of up to 300Mbps on the 2.4GHz frequency band, and as much as 1,200Mbps each on two independent networks operating on the 5GHz frequency band. It will sell as a two-pack (one router and one node) for $349.99.  

Gamers will be more interested in TP-Link’s Archer AX11000 Gaming Router, pictured up top. While this is a new market for TP-Link, it looks as though the company has done its homework to understand what gamers are looking for. The Wi-Fi 6-compatible Archer AX1000 is also a tri-band router, but TP-Link says it’s capable of providing up to 1,148Mbps of wireless throughput with its 2.4GHz network and a whopping 4,804Mbps on each of its 5GHz networks.

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