Sendero Group Travel Blog

It is amazing to me how many companies have some sort of GPS device here at the Consumer Electronics Show. It used to be that I could visit a couple companies and know what was happening. Most of the products I have seen have nothing exciting. There was one designed specifically for bike riders. It had no maps and it really meant to replace the traditional bicycle odometer and trip recorder.

There was a fun product in the form of a football or soccer ball remote control. Picture your typical squishy kid's football with a remote keypad embedded in it. They only cost $4. That was probably the distributor price but even the ball might cost that much. At least you wouldn't have to worry about it breaking. In fact, you can toss it around the room.

The Monster Cable Beats Studio headphones sound really good. They have some noise canceling but unlike the Bose products, the music quality is not compromised by the noise cancelation. You can purchase an add-on controller so you can use them with your phone to listen and talk.

For those who prefer stylish earbuds, check out Monster's Lady Gaga diamond shaped earphones. Pretty cute!

How about a Schlage electronic key lock for your house with a wireless connection to a security camera or house lights or even a thermostat. You can control it all from your cell phone. You can even view the camera's video online when you are away assuming you can see these things.

Several years ago, I reported on the Motorola Blue Mini bone conduction earphone. It never came out. They have a version finally shipping called the Endeavor HX1 for $149.You can use it either like a normal noise canceling Bluetooth earphone or you can use the bone conduction mic. It picks up your voice through your head and not through a microphone which would also be picking up background sound. You can whisper and be heard when using this but presumably the sound quality is a bit restricted.

Motorola also has two new Bluetooth speakers meant for the car but they can be used as a pedestrian as well. The T215 is $69 and is rectangular and the T325 is square and runs $89They both have a 2 wat amplifier and are pretty light but not super small, say 10 square inches or so.

This only scratches the surface of what I saw today with 3 days to go.

Mike

Greetings from Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps.

This is something like my 25th CES. Although I am always in search of GPS products, there are many other cool gadgets I will be finding along the way. At the private press unveiling last night, here are a list of some devices that caught my attention.

Two mini projectors, one from 3M and one from Micro Vision, the WX Laser Pico projector. It connects to an iPhone or Blackberry and can project an image up to 200 inches. Since it uses lasers, it automatically focuses and it is the size of a pack of cards.

V-Phone by Saigus is the first video phone in the US. It is running on an Android phone at the moment and it uses your carrier's existing service.

CompuLab has a PC which is an inch thick and 4 inches square and will cost under $400.

The B-Jive is an iPhone app which combines all your message chat clients into one application.

Super USB or also known as USB 3.0 is out and on 17 products so far. This is ten times faster than your current USB 2.0.

Mediche has an on-line and automatic insulin injecting device which keeps track of when your last injection was, when the next one should be and how the levels should be adjusted. This can also be monitored on-line which should mean that it would be accessible even though the meter isn't accessible.

Ocean Blue has a talking set top box, which will hopefully find its way into different television devices in the US.

Orbit Sound who make the T3 speaker Sendero sells, has a WiFi Internet Radio.

The Zomm Bluetooth leash for phones will alert if your phone goes out of Bluetooth range, about 30 feet. It fits on a key ring and acts as a mini speaker phone as well. So, if your phone is in a purse, you can answer and talk on it from the Zomm. It also has an emergency mode that automatically dials 911. The retail is $79.

I like the name of this company, Archer Fish.
This is a smart wireless security camera which figures out certain visual activity it sees and texts you if there is an unusual pattern. You choose which patterns to look for like someone lingering in your yard or a package being delivered to your door.

Bestalife has very cool ball shaped speakers which expand into the Lady Bug, the Firefly or the Mantis. They have iPod docking ports, look very cool and sound good.

There is a device interestingly called the mPower, spelled the same as the BrailleNote version. It doubles as an emergency flashlight and USB charger.

Klipsch has a combined speaker and LED light which screws into a normal light socket. It uses the house wiring to connect to your stereo. So, you can put speakers in any room and they will be virtually invisible as part of the light.

The Eton Scorpion is a very cool all in one AM radio, FM, NOA, with flashlight, solar cells, crank and USB charger. It is about the size of a flashlight and it is nicely weather proofed.

I am interested to check out the NXT Tunebug surface sound technology which integrates into a helmet to generate audio from the surface of the helmet without covering the ears.

Stay tuned here, on Twitter and Facebook as I post tidbits as we work the show over the next 4 days.

Mike