CES 2014

In the most ambitious home theater demo at CES, MSR Acoustics coordinated an Elite Home Entertainment Experience in a large room at the Venetian Hotel.

For a long, long time, we controlled things with buttons. Buttons are nice because they give us tactile feedback. But buttons are bulky and touchscreens have made them seem even clunkier. Now there is a movement underfoot to modernize the hardware button paradigm. The effort is often called the Neo-Sensory Age. Novasentis is a key player in that movement. Their press conference revealed their plans to bring back the button.

NYNE is a relatively new company that made a big showing last year at CES and is back, ready to impress again this year. Although they’ve discontinued their gorgeous home product line, NYNE, a division of BOSS Audio Systems, is jumping into the small-speaker market with both feet. However, unlike other manufacturers to make a single portable speaker to fit a variety of needs, NYNE is here at CES with a variety of speakers, each filling a specific niche.

In the aftermath of the late 2013 news that it was abandoning the plasma TV market, Panasonic came to the 2014 CES armed with a new line-up of advanced 4K-resolution, LED-backit HDTVs—though no OLED models were annonced.

According to Julie Bauer, president of the Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company, the new high end 4K HDTVs will fill the hole in image quality that many enthusiasts believe will be left by the disappearance of the firm’s plasmas.

In a dark cubicle, with no photos possible (or allowed), Panasonic demonstrated a prototype of a 4K flagship LCD/LED set planned for release later in 2014. Sited next to the now discontinued ZT60 plasma, it looked impressive. The LCD set had full-array LED backlighting, and appeared to have respectable off-center performance—as far as it was possible to tell in such a small space. One of the Panasonic reps said it had an IPS LCD panel—the LCD technology with the best off-axis performance.

One of the most exciting products I’ve seen so far at CES2014 bills itself as “the first home security and automation device that combines panoramic video, Z-Wave home automation and environmental sensors into a single elegant product that you interact with on your smartphone or tablet.” Or, as the company says, “Piper is the new way to monitor and interact with your home.” Piper has an extremely impressive array of features, including three customizable security modes with a motion detector, two-way audio, and 105 dB built-in siren; full Z-Wave compatibility allowing use of a huge variety of Z-Wave home automation-oriented accessories; an HD Panoramic camera with a 180-degree fisheye lens that offers pan, tilt, and zoom in 1080p; built-in environmental sensors for temperature, humidity, ambient light, and sound; 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity; as well as Android and iOS smartphone and tablet apps for controlling the system. The user interface is clean and intuitive. Piper is available for pre-order now and is expected to begin shipping by the end of January 2014 for $239. There are no monthly or other recurring service fees.