One thing I always like about CES is the chance to get a feel for where products will be heading in the future. After seeing what was on display at this year’s show, it’s clear that we’ll see a lot more “AI PCs” and that televisions will continue to get bigger, brighter, and in some cases transparent. But there were lots of smaller products and specifications that I can see becoming incorporated into more products that will have a big impact over the next few years.
(Credit: Michael J. Miller)
Faster Charging, Wireless and WiredThe Wireless Power Consortium is responsible for the Qi standard for wireless charging that most smartphones and other small devices today use. At the show, the organization was promoting the Qi2 standard, which supports 15-watt charging as compared with the 5-watt charging the initial standard used, so charging can happen much faster. This is effectively built off the MagSafe technology that Apple uses in its phones, and Qi2 works with the iPhone 15. (Note that many older magnetic chargers support 7.5 watts, and existing Apple-certified devices may support up to 15 watts already). Other phones and devices will undoubtedly support Qi2 as well.At the show, I saw many chargers that support Qi2, and tried out a 15-watt Anker MagGo foldable 3-in-1 charger that works with an iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch—a pretty neat combination that worked well as a travel charger, especially because a charger I brought to the show failed. Several other companies showed good-looking Qi2 and 3-way chargers, including Otterbox and Belkin.
(Credit: Michael J. Miller)
On the show floor, the Wireless Power Consortium also showed off another initiative it’s working on: the Ki standard for a wireless kitchen. This is designed to go into future cooktops and will support up to 2,200 watts of inductive power. This standard isn’t quite complete (the organization says it should be final in the second half of the year), but the demo showed mixers, hot pots, and other kitchen appliances working wirelessly on an induction cooktop. It takes a long time for such standards to get widely adopted—most of us replace our phones much more often than our cooktops—but it seems likely to roll out over the next few years.For wired charging, as well as for connecting all sorts of peripherals, USB-C/Thunderbolt remains the standard, and the USB Implementer’s Forum was promoting its labels for more power (up to 120 watts), enough to now power larger laptops, including those with discrete graphics. While USB-C has mostly become the standard on thin and light laptops, many larger laptops still use proprietary chargers. I expect this is something that will change over the next couple of years.Better Audio Broadcasting
(Credit: Michael J. Miller)
If you’ve ever been at an airport gate and kept hearing announcements for multiple flights, or in a sports bar and wanted to hear the sound from only the game you care about, Auracast may be the answer.The Bluetooth SIG had this new broadcast technology at the show. The way this works is that the airport, or the bar, or any other place that wants to broadcast multiple audio signals, sets up an Auracast transmitter, which enables a more powerful signal than Bluetooth—one that can travel for up to 100 meters. You use an app on your phone to select the broadcast you want to connect to, then use conventional Bluetooth (which only works for about 10 meters) to connect it to your earbuds.This seems like a good solution for places like the airport or the bar, or even for a conference where the presentation could be broadcast in multiple languages.Micromechanical Speakers
(Credit: Michael J. Miller)
As part of the never-ending pursuit of headphones and earbuds that are lighter and better-sounding, xMEMS showed off a variety of devices that use piezoelectric MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) to create sound instead of conventional audio drivers.
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The company has a variety of products with different levels of sound, and these have been incorporated into a range of devices, including Creative’s Aurvana Ace, which uses xMEMS’s Cowell tweeters along with conventional dynamic drivers for midrange and bass. The company showed off other, higher-end solutions, including those from Nobel Audio, plus a variety of prototypes of much lighter over-the-ear headsets using only MEMS drivers.It’s an interesting concept, and one that I expect will gain more traction in the coming years as demand for smaller, more capable, and longer-lasting earbuds grows.
(Credit: Michael J. Miller)
It’s not a new idea, but I was also quite taken by the Wacom Bridge technology, which lets you use a drawing tablet over a remote connection, but with great accuracy and very little latency. This works with a variety of Wacom tablets, which are commonly used by many artists and designers. Using remote access technology from Splashtop, this works with tools such as Adobe Photoshop and DaVinci Resolve among other, and lets you use the local pen and tablet settings on the remote system.
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