Remotely Possible

Newcomer Hauk Technologies hawked the company’s Signal Transparent Surface technology at CEDIA 2017 with the promise of providing a way to eliminate “the days of ugly satellite receivers perched on the roof of your beautiful home.” In my case, I live in a very, very rural area—not far from the middle of the middle of nowhere—so the only sensibilities offended by the presence of the DISH satellite TV and satellite internet antennas on the roof of my house are those of the geese and ducks during migration season. Those of you who live in more populated areas, however (especially the ones who live under the heavy burden of Homeowners’ Association rules and restrictions about such unsightly things as antennas and satellite dishes on their homes), should pay attention to this interesting cloaking technology...

I’ve written about NuBryte before because of the company’s unique and beautiful TouchPoint color touch-screen consoles that fit in single- or double-gang junction boxes, replacing existing light switches—and the company continues to be noteworthy...

Aura from Cognitive Systems is a dead simple home monitoring system that can be installed in minutes without tools. The system uses a small, rectangular Hub and from one to four identical-looking Beacons that plug into the AC outlets in a home or apartment. The Hub uses Wi-Fi to connect to the network’s router for internet access and creates a mesh network to communicate with the Beacons in the system.

Aura is an extremely unusual home monitoring system in that it...

Online retailer Monoprice debuted seven new models in the company’s Amber series of in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. The in-wall models feature...

If you’ve ever wondered whether or not there were an easy way to integrate voice control into a distributed audio system (and who hasn’t, after all?) Origin Acoustics announced at CEDIA 2017 today that the answer is definitely, “Yes!”—if you install one (or more) of the company’s new Valet amplifiers. According to Origin Acoustics, the Valet amplifier is designed to seamlessly integrate with an Amazon Echo Dot to create a simple, interactive four- or six-zone audio system. (More zones can be created by daisy-chaining additional Valet amps.)

Multiple features make the Valet system a potential paradigm-changer in the distributed audio world...

I’m cheap—in large part because I don’t have very much money. So to save a bit of cash, I’m shacking up with several other journalists (who are also, coincidentally, cheap—for the very same reason) at a swanky vacation home rental in La Jolla that we got a super-sweet deal on for the duration of CEDIA 2017. It’s almost embarrassingly nice—certainly too nice for the likes of the crowd I run with.

By the time you read this, it may already be too late to stop it.

And your ISP may have just logged the fact that you landed on a page containing a discussion about online privacy.

Paranoid? Well, yes, but with good reason...