Scanners and Peripherals at CES 2015
January 2015 – One of the largest areas of the CES show is the peripherals that support the main platforms of computers, cell phones, TVs and cameras. The majority of the booths at the expo floor and events like the co-located Showstoppers are these support products. Some of the big items this year are printers & scanners, power bricks & speakers, along with media distribution technology.
iFrogz has a been a long time supplier in the powerbrick and accessory space. They were showing one of their new products the GoLite Traveler which is a 900mAh battery that supports two 2.1A outputs with a capability of 6 smartphone charges or one full tablet charge, along with an LED flashlight. The new unit replaces the 2014 model which had 7800mAh and a mix of the two ports as 2.1A and 1.0A outputs along with the LED flashlight. The older design had a noticeable temperature change with both ports active or when charging a tablet, which is completely absent in the new design, even with the higher power and current outputs.
Joining this market is MyCharge. They have a new line of specialty chargers that are for new activities for the mobile lifestyle. They feature powerbricks with built in cords for Apple and Android devices, waterproof and dust resistant enclosures, fashion designs, high capacity devices for travel and ruggedized cases with carabineers for hiking, riding and climbing activities. Most of the MyCharge products are capable of tablet level charging, and the high output charging for reduced time at the connection. Some of the products are multi-plug output so they have a combination of fast charge and standard charge outlets.
IO Gear was showing audio, wireless data, Bluetooth connectivity and HDMI 4K video connectivity in their booth. A longtime provider of wired solutions, their wireless solutions that were shown span the video, audio, mobile connectivity and gaming space. Video was being shown on the next gen platform of 8bit 4K. the y support a full line of switchers, repeaters and switching matrix that support up 5×2 wireless 4K media for a distance of 200 ft (line of sight, with walls the system tested out at about 160 ft). On preview was a USB3 docking station that is targeted towards the new Ultrabooks and convertibles that have high degrees of computing capability, but due to size, limited external connectivity to monitors, printers, keyboards, etc.
iHome and Jam Wireless were showing the audio side. iHome which dominated the iPod/iPhone market is now platform agnostic with Bluetooth and NFC connectivity that supports Apple products as well as Android products in compact, phone, phablet and tablet form factors. The bulk of their product line is still shelf oriented radios/clock radios/and speaker systems, but they have launched a full line of portable speakers for active and outdoor applications. One of their highlight designs, to be available in late Q1/Q2 ’15, is a rechargeable Bluetooth speaker that is shaped like a flask. The printable design flask allows for easy pocket transport of the sound that strong enough to be heard amongst 6-8 people. Jam wireless is targeting the smaller groups and more active products. They were showing waterproof speakers, rechargeable sports headphone, small table top speakers and small speakers meant to travel in a backpack or on a carabineer clip. All of the Jam products are Bluetooth connected and some feature NFC for easy pairing.
Closing out the group was new printers and scanners. The majority of printer enhancements were the addition of a built in host adapter so the printers can be direct connected wirelessly to laptops and mobile devices, without the need for a network. On the printing innovation side, Pimera introduced the Primera Trio. This is a portable USB2/USB3 wire connected B&W/Color letter/A6 sized inkjet printer with a built in scanner function. With the built in scanner function, the unit can operate as a copy machine. The unit is a full 24 bit 600dpi scanner and provides 4800×1200 dpi output. The portable unit, which is available in a variety of colors, measures only 11.4”W x 1.8”H x 6.5”D while weighting only 2.8lbs with batteries. Combined with a laptop or convertible computer, it provides a full off environment in your hotel for travel.
Finally on the higher end of the scanning side there were new products from Epson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Toshiba and HP. A key integration to a number of these products was the inclusion of the Neat Receipts management software. A new program from Neat has the company focusing on software, and OEMs in the hardware business are doing optimization for their application as a bundle with the products. This partnership program was being shown at eh show with new all in one printer from HP. To help spread the use model of the Net receipts software, they added the new features of Gmail and email scraping to search for and include receipts in the system. This allows for NFC & ApplePay along with hotel/gas station and restaurant receipts that are direct emailed to mobile accts. The technology supports both embedded and attached receipts and supplements last year’s feature of being able to process PDF files that exist ont the system with receipts on them.
