151815563
submission
CIStud writes:
Sonos announces price hikes for Arc, Amp, Roam, Sub, Five, One and One SL speakers citing chip shortage and supply chain. Sonos Arc's price is leaping by $100 from $799 to $899. Not every product will be seeing a large jump in price, as some products like the Sonos Roam are seeing increases of just $10. Other products receiving only small price increases include the Sonos One and Sonos One SL ($20 increase), while others are not seeing pricing changes whatsoever like the Sonos Move and Sonos Port.
147728576
submission
CIStud writes:
Telesforo Aviles has been sentenced to 52 months in prison after pleading guilty to repeatedly logging into female customers’ accounts in order to view their video feeds for sexual gratification. According to plea papers, Aviles admits that contrary to company policy, he routinely added his personal email address to customers’ ADT Pulse accounts, giving himself real-time access to the video feeds from their homes. In some instances, he claimed he needed to add himself temporarily to “test” the system; in other instances, he added himself without their knowledge.
Aviles took note of which homes had attractive women, then repeatedly logged into these customers’ accounts in order to view their footage for sexual gratification, he admits. Plea papers indicate he watched numerous videos of naked women and couples engaging in sexual activity inside their homes. Over a four-and-a-half-year period, Aviles secretly accessed roughly 200 customer accounts more than 9,600 times without their consent, he admits.
144921928
submission
CIStud writes:
The rumors have persisted for some time, and now Logitech (NASDAQ: LOGI) has officially confirmed it has discontinued its once-vaunted Harmony remote controls, including the line of Logitech Harmony Pro programmable remotes for custom installers. Logitech plans to continue maintaining the Harmony database and software. The discontinuation does not affect the operation or the warranty on any Harmony remotes being used by integrators’ clients already in the field. Logitech also plans to continue to offer service and support for Harmony remotes. The company also points out that the decision does not affect a customer’s ability to interface with the Harmony universal remotes via their Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice controls.
144316340
submission
CIStud writes:
Sonos notes it first added Qobuz 16-bit FLAC streaming back in 2013, but now the company has expanded its relationship with Qobuz to stream 24-bit/48kHz content. Qobuz supports the audiophile market includes curated content, liner notes and a download store.
131977060
submission
CIStud writes:
The 1.05-acre lot near the Las Vegas Strip houses a 5,000-square-foot home built in 1978. Beneath the five-bedroom, six-bathroom home across the entire property is a 15,000-square-foot subterranean concrete and steel rectangular-shaped doomsday wellness bunker outfitted with an array of lighting control that highlights a pool, spa, waterfall, trees, guest house, barbecue, fountain and 500-linear feet of floor-to-ceiling illuminated murals.
115540428
submission
CIStud writes:
Barry Sonnenfeld, director of the "Men in Black" series, "Get Shorty" and most recently Netflix "Series of Unfortunate Events", says 8K is "only good for sports" and High Dynamic Range (HDR) is "stupid" and "a waste." Sonnenfeld, speaking with actor Patrick Warburton at the CEDIA Expo last week in Denver, called for a "filmmaker mode" on all TVs that can turn off unwanted HDR. He says Netflix's insistence everything be shot in HDR altered the cinematography on "Series of Unfortunate Events" to his disliking.
104532002
submission
CIStud writes:
Giant home improvement retailer Lowe's is giving up on the smart home market. The company announced its "difficult decision" to exit the home automation market and is seeking a buyer for its Iris Smart Home business as part of a “strategic reassessment.” The announcement is part of multiple other maneuvers by Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) that include closing its Orchard Supply Hardware business, dumping its Alacrity Renovation Service, shutting down all its locations in Mexico, and shutting more than 50 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Lowe's Iris was hailed as the only entry-level home automation system that handled ZigBee, Z-Wave and Wi-fi when it came out in 2012. Speaking to investors, president and CEO Marvin Ellison lumped Lowe's Iris in with other initiatives as an "underperforming... non-core business."
84925595
submission
CIStud writes:
This $1.5 million "Star Trek" home theater is the envy of every geek on the planet. The theater is a reconstruction of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from "Star Trek: Next Generation" and also include $1 million worth of memorabilia from the classic sci-fi TV show.
79537421
submission
CIStud writes:
Due to the recent terror events, the Consumer Technology Association is instituting drastic new security measures for attendees coming to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from Janury 5-9, 2016. Attendees will be subject to metal detector screening and bomb-sniffing dogs, but the biggest potential bottleneck is that laptop computer bags are being discouraged. Bags with wheels will not even be allowed.
73233345
submission
CIStud writes:
The advent of solar power and home batteries from companies like Tesla will force the reinvention of home wiring from primarily AC high voltage to DC home-run low voltage to reduce power conversion loss. To avoid the 20% to 40% power loss when converting from DC to AC, home wiring will have to convert to home-run low-voltage, and eventually eliminate the need for high-voltage 110V electrical wiring.
71020297
submission
CIStud writes:
The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has released its new 3D Audio Standard ( AES69-2015), covering topics such as binaural listening, which is growing due to increased usage of smartphones, tablets and other individual entertainment systems that offer audio using headphones. AES states that an understanding of the way that the listener experiences binaural sound, expressed as head-related transfer functions (HRTF) facilitates the way to 3D personal audio. The standard also looks into convolution-based reverberation processors in 3D virtual audio environments, which has also grown with the increase of available computing power.
70883969
submission
CIStud writes:
Google's Nest, best known for its innovated smart Nest thermostats and Nest Protect smoke detectors, has posted several new job positions for "Nest Audio" including for a leadership position to handle "acoustics, audio electronics, audio SW, audio test and validation for all Nest Products." If Nest branches into multiroom wireless audio, what will it mean for Sonos, Bose, Bluesound, Paradigm and others in the space.
