iFrogz Impulse Wireless Headphones Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Impulse Wireless comes in black or white for $60.

Zagg

Owned by Zagg, iFrogz is known for making inexpensive products that perform better than you’d expect. I liked its in-ear sports headphone, the Summit Wireless, and I’m going to check out its new Impulse on-ear wireless headphones here at CES 2017. They’re available now for $60 (no word yet on international pricing), which puts them in competition with Skullcandy’s popular Grind Wireless, which cost around $80 online.

Here’s a look at the Impulse’s key features. I’ll let you know how they sound as soon as I get my hands on a pair.

• On-ear music and call controls
• Built-in mic for quick and easy calls on the go
• 40mm drivers
• Up to 12 hours of battery life
• 3.5mm (wired) audio jack option
• AeroFoam ear pads
• Available in white and black for $59.99 at Zagg.com

The headphones have a foldable design.

Zagg

Ooma Home Monitoring System Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Ooma’s motion sensor.

Ooma

As you might expect of a smart home system, Ooma’s sensors will notify you if they detect something out of the ordinary. The sensors won’t just notify you, though. Ooma’s motion detector, water detector, or door and window sensor can each call 911 themselves.

Ooma made a name for itself with the Telo — a box that plugs into your router and provides you with a home phone service. Telo routes calls over the internet, and you’ll need the $90 gadget to make use any of Ooma’s new trio of smart home devices.

Introduced at CES today in Las Vegas, Ooma’s three sensors — a $35 motion detector, a $30 leak sensor and a $25 door and window sensor — communicate with the Telo using Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication. DECT is the same tech used by ordinary cordless telephones.

You can set the sensors to Home or Away mode and if they detect something amiss, they’ll alert you by phone, push notifications, email or text messages depending on your preferences. The sensors can also call 911 directly from your Telo. It’ll connect with the dispatcher closest to your home, and can send through the address as well.

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You’ll likely need to pay a monthly fee for this service. If you’re already using Ooma’s premium service for your Telo, you can add as many sensors to your system as you want without adding to your $10 a month fee. If you’re using Ooma’s free basic service, you can use one sensor for free, but two or more costs $6 a month.

There’s no option to use multiple sensors for free and skip the 911 monitoring. That’s a shame, but it’s also the only thing that makes Ooma’s smart home sensors at all unique. The sensors themselves are reasonably priced, so if you already have a Telo, it might make sense to make your home phone smarter.

Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Canon

To bring the PowerShot G9 X up to date for 2017, Canon gave the Mark II the latest version of its imaging engine, Digic 7, plus improved wireless connection options.

Canon plans to ship the G9 X Mark II in February for $530. (We don’t have UK or Australian pricing, but that converts directly to about £430 and AU$730.)

Digic 7 arrived in the G7 X Mark II last year, and in the G9 X M2 it brings a variety of small improvements to the camera. They include better automatic scene detection and Picture Styles, tracking autofocus, image stabilization and low-light photo quality. You’ll also be able to shift exposures while shooting time lapse movies.

The other addition is low-energy Bluetooth for maintaining a persistent connection to devices, the first time it’s been implemented in a Canon camera (everyone else has had it for a while).

Keep checking CNET for all the news coming from CES 2017.

Netgear Nighthawk C7100V AC1900 WiFi Cable Modem Router for XFINITY Internet and Voice Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The front and back of the new Netgear gateway for Comcast.

Dong Ngo/CNET

If you’re a Comcast internet customer, it’s generally a good idea to get your own equipment; you have better control of your network and avoid paying the some $10 monthly rental fee. And now you can do that even if you also use Comcast phone service — available in the Xfinity Double Play or Xfinity Triple Play plans — thanks to the new gateway Netgear unveiled today at CES 2017, the Nighthawk C7100V AC1900 WiFi Cable Modem Router for Xfinity Internet and Voice.

Top broadband speed

If there’s something the long-winded name doesn’t already include, that’d be the fact that the new Nighthawk C7100V’s built-in cable modem is super-fast. Netgear says supporting DOCSIS 3.0 with 24×8 channel bonding (24 downstream and 8 upstream,) it can deliver a broadband download speed of up to 960 megabits per second.

While this is likely faster than what you’re paying for right now, it means the gateway is ready for the future when you want to get faster broadband speed from Comcast.

The C7100V also includes two integrated telephone lines that support all features of Comcast phone service, including 3-way calling, caller ID, call forwarding and others.

Reliable Wi-Fi

As a Wi-Fi router, the C7100V is the enhanced version of the NightHawk R7000, which is one of the best routers from Netgear. The gateway can deliver the top Wi-Fi speed of up to 1300 megabits per second on the 5GHz band and up to 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, simultaneously, with beam-forming, which helps ensure reliable connections with clients.

The gateway also include a backup battery option (battery sold separately) that allows it to work for up to 8 hours of standby and up to 5 hours of talk time during power outage.

Availability

Netgear says the Nighthawk C7100V is easy to setup and can be activated with Comcast via its web interface without a service call. The new gateway is slated to be available later this year with the suggested price of $300.

Here’s what else is happening at CES 2017.

Paragon Mat Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Good The FirstBuild Paragon Induction Cooktop is a versatile countertop system that lets you sous vide, fry, slow cook or sauté with the induction burner and Bluetooth-connected temperature probe. The product also comes with an easy-to-use, streamlined app that helps you monitor your cooking.

The Bad The price of the Paragon – $299 – will keep this product out of reach for some home cooks. And don’t rely on the induction cooktop to boil water quickly.

The Bottom Line The Paragon is a handy multitasker that can do much more than just sous vide, which makes this product a useful addition to the kitchen.

Available at Paragon $299

Buying a sous vide system is an expensive gamble if you’re new to this type of cooking. Sous vide involves vacuum-sealing food in a plastic bag and putting that bag in a temperature-controlled water bath (read more about how it works here). The immersion circulators and countertop systems that regulate the temperature of your water bath cost at least $100, and a few are as much as $500. So there’s a chance you could throw a few hundred bucks at a product, not even like sous vide, and be stuck with an expensive “unitasker” taking up valuable kitchen storage space.

The Paragon Induction Cooktop delivers sous vide cooking with a little more flexibility. The $299 Paragon, which is made up of an induction cooktop and Bluetooth-connected temperature probe, lets you create a temperature-controlled water bath in whatever induction-compatible pot you have hiding in your cabinet. What makes the Paragon more appealing than other sous-vide-only products is that you can use the system for multiple cooking tasks such as deep-frying, slow-cooking and sauteing thanks to the induction burner that is the heart of the product. That means that you can still find ways to use the Paragon in your home, even if it turns out that cooking food in a bag isn’t your jam.

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We’ve seen a sous vide-centric product with the same level of versatility — the Oliso SmartHub & Top also includes an induction base on which you can cook in a variety of ways. However, the Oliso system includes a bulky water bath unit that takes up more space than the Paragon. And the Paragon’s lower price makes this product more approachable than the $499 Oliso.

The Paragon has a few quirks that you’d have to overcome if you buy it: some slight variation between actual and set temperatures; the oddly shaped, large induction cooktop; the nearly $300 price. But the Paragon is easy to use, works with a responsive app and, most importantly, cooks food well, no matter what method you choose.

How the Paragon works

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The Paragon Induction Cooktop is made up of two parts: a Bluetooth-connected temperature probe that attaches to the side of a pot (foreground) and an induction countertop burner.

Chris Monroe/CNET

The Paragon comes from appliance manufacturer GE’s Louisville, Ky.-based FirstBuild microfactory. FirstBuild ran a successful crowdsourcing campaign for the Paragon on the website Indiegogo in 2015, and backers began receiving their cooking systems earlier this year.

The Paragon is a simple system. You get a 12-inch wide countertop induction burner that works because of electromagnetic heat (read more about the science of induction here). The cooktop connects via Bluetooth to a temperature probe. That probe attaches with magnets to the side of an induction-friendly pot that you place on the cooktop. If you want to sous vide, you fill a pot with water, attach the temperature probe (make sure it’s in contact with the water) and set the temperature you want the water to reach directly on the cooktop’s digital display or with the Paragon’s app. The probe measures the temperature of the water, then tells the cooktop to turn the heat up or down to get to your desired temperature.

Fove 0 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Eye tracking isn’t VR tech for 2017. That’s the standard conversation point for anyone in the industry, Fove included. So why is Fove making an eye-tracking VR headset? To get there first, and help developers explore the ideas, according to Fove’s Jim Preston, who guided me through a demo in a busy CES preshow event.

The Fove 0 isn’t as polished a VR headset as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Tucked into a booth among rows of other CES gadgets, it blended in and looked generic. But its biggest achievement lurks under the hood: its unique rings of eye-tracking sensors. There are two arrays of six IR sensors plus one infrared camera in each eye.

The headset didn’t fit my face when I tried it: Fove 0 won’t work for a good many glasses-wearers. As a result, my whole demo was done in severely myopic conditions. I couldn’t vet the VR quality, sadly, but I could measure how well it handled eye-tracking. It was about as good as the Eyefluence demo I tried last year, back before Eyefluence was bought by Google.

Demoing Fove, which was a tight fit on my face.

Scott Stein/CNET

What is eye tracking good for? Lots of things, actually. One demo, demonstrating what’s called “foveated rendering,” was able to focus in more detail on objects I was looking at, mirroring how the eye actually sees (and saving on graphics processing). Eye tracking can also be used to control games and interfaces more accurately. A shooting game blasted little flying things when I looked at them, and the blasts leaped across the screen as my eyes flitted.

Fove also aims to explore how VR can handle diagnosing medical conditions that can be identified by eye behaviors, and to be a tool for marketers. A third demo placed me in a virtual store, and tracked the heat maps of where my eyes looked. It turns out I like balconies and giant statues.

Fove 0’s eye-tracking sensor rings, in orange (the production models’ tracking rings are black).

Scott Stein/CNET

Setting up Fove 0 involved a bit of calibration as it scanned my eyes. Even then, though, the eye-tracking had occasional hiccups. And the Fove 0 was a lot less comfortable than other headsets I’ve worn.

At $600 (about £490 or AU$825), this early-adopter Fove 0 is a hint at where VR will be, possibly as soon as 2018. Eye-tracking companies have been hot commodities lately, with Eyefluence acquired by Google and The Eye Tribe snapped up by Facebook. Maybe Fove will be next.

Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The little balls of energy we call preschoolers spend most days wearing themselves and their parents out. Especially today, when so many parents work full- or part-time, knowing how to give young children attention, instruction, and just basic necessities like food and medical attention can be overwhelming.

Enter Fisher-Price’s newest device: the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle. The Smart Cycle aims to give kids an outlet for that extra energy — but also instruction for their expanding intellects. At $150 (converts to roughly AU$200, ‎£120), the Cycle will connect via Bluetooth to tablets or TVs, and offer learning apps that focus on math, science, STEM, literacy, and social studies.

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While I don’t love the idea of adding another reason to stare at screens in the homes of today’s children, Fisher-Price’s device looks interesting. It certainly could supplement the time beleaguered parents are already logging everyday, offering an alternative to TV programs that fail to teach or get kids moving.

The Smart Cycle also offers cool ways for parents to track their child’s progress through the learning courses. A Bluetooth-connected app allows monitoring over time.

My concerns about the Smart Cycle as a parent are twofold: Practically, whether children actually decide to spend time on a stationary bicycle depends heavily on whether the course offerings are engaging. Fisher-Price promises more courses in the coming years, but I wouldn’t want to shell out $150 without some evidence of the bike’s effectiveness with my own child.

Fisher-Price

My second concern is more philosophical. I just don’t know how helpful early learning is if it doesn’t depend on human interaction. The development of foundational critical thinking skills seems especially unlikely if the child has no way to engage the material beyond the strictures laid out by the device. Before I would buy a device like the Smart Cycle, I’d like to see clear empirical evidence from Fisher-Price in support of both learning from a non-human device and from learning while cycling.

At this time, Fisher-Price couldn’t offer me that data. So while the Smart Cycle seems compelling in concept, I’d wait to drop $150 until I saw real numbers that support its use.

BlackBerry Mercury Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The last few BlackBerry phones we’ve reviewed: all duds. But the guys who picked up the license to make the next crop promise way better ‘Berrys, and that starts with the preproduction phone at CES 2017 that’s rumored to be called the Mercury.

A touchscreen Android phone crowns a QWERTY keyboard that you can also swipe your finger along to flip through screens and scroll up and down, like you could on the Priv and Passport. There’s also a fingerprint reader in the divot of the spacebar, which helps keep the “Mercury” up to date. (The space bar is no home button, though.)

BlackBerry was all but dead until TCL, the Chinese company behind Alcatel phones, picked up the license to make more of them, including the underwhelming BlackBerry DTEK 50 and DTEK 60. This model sees a return to the BlackBerry branding of the company’s heyday.

You’ll find no water-proofing here, but you do get a convenience key on the right that you can program to launch other apps, like the camera or your email. I really love these, especially once you get used to using them.

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We don’t have specs, a price or an official name, but we do know that the phone has a headset jack, USB-C and a hefty aluminum build tempered by a soft-touch backing (it felt grippy, not slippery). And of course, it embraces BlackBerry’s internally lauded security system, which it claims measures up to Apple’s iOS and Samsung’s Knox for end-to-end security.

The BlackBerry “Mercury” will go on sale at the end of February, or soon after. Look for many more leaks and rumors before then.

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Hub Robot Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

At their CES press release on Wednesday, LG announced a new robot for the home, called the Hub Robot. For now, it seems to rely largely on Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa for skills like playing music and alerting users of weather conditions. But it also connects other LG appliances around the house, like the oven, robot vacuum cleaner and washing machines.

The LG Hub Robot has a circular “face” with a screen displaying eyes — perched atop a conical white body. The robot can re-orient itself to face the user, and bob along with music it’s playing. The screen can also display images and videos, although how exactly it accesses these is currently unclear.

LG

This story is developing, and will be updated as details emerge.

LG Stylo 3 hands on at CES 2017

With the Note 7 gone, looking for a stylus equipped alternative? While you won’t find anything nearly as high-end, LG does have a more budget friendly alternative. At CES 2017 LG announced the LG Stylo 3, a mid-range phablet offering mid-to-low range specs and na affordale price point.

The Stylo 3 rocks a MediaTek octa-core processor powered by 3GB of RAM and navigated by the latest version of the Android operating system, 7.0 Nougat. On the software side, it’s essentially identical to the LG V20, just accompanied with a sleek stylus for all your jotting needs.

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While a stylus is equipped, the LG Stylos 3 is obviously not a Note 7 competior, offering much more modest specs. There are some similarities, though. First, there’s the obvious inclusion a stylus. Next, the software here closely mimics the Note 7, allowing you to pop out the stylus and scribble away without any unnecessary interface, but the Note 7 also delivered a very impressive camera, which is something you just can’t say about the Stylo 3. Pictures were serviceable enough under ideal lighting conditions, but even the lighting of the showcase room at CES proved a challenge for the 13MP selfie cam.

It’s worth noting that the stylus is notably thinner than we’ve previously seen. We’ve yet to really determine whether or not this is an improvement, and further experience with the Stylo 3 is definitely merited. Some members of our team found the thinner pen more comfortable than the comparably thick Note 7 stylus, but others found it flimsy and needlessly minimalist.

In short, the LG Stylo 3 is far from a flagship device, but really that’s no surprise since you’re paying so much less for it. If you’re someone who values the stylus attributes over conventional performance benchmarks, then this might be a device to consider. However, power users should venture forth with caution.

What do you think of the LG Stylo 3 so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!