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CES 2015 Debuts the Connected Pacifier

The first Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opened its doors during the summer of 1967. Since then an impressive list of technology products and services have premiered at CES, including the videocassette recorder, the compact disc player, digital audio technology, the DVD, HDTV, and Blu-ray. MIT calls CES “a vast celebration of every imaginable gadget and gizmo.”  

The gizmos this year include the Pacif-i, a smart pacifier made by a U.K.-based company called Blue Maestro. A temperature sensor is built into the silicon pacifier, and whenever your baby or toddler is sucking on the Pacif-i it automatically transmits that temperature data via Bluetooth 4.0 to a free app on an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet.

The app time-stamps and plots the temperature data in a graph, and parents can even use the app to record when a medication is administered, set-up alerts or share the data with a medical team. The Pacif-i also features an in-built proximity sensor that allows parents to monitor the pacifier’s location and get alerts if a child wanders off.

Put a Phone on Your Fridge

Another product launched at CES is a little phone that sticks to your fridge with a magnet, allowing the whole family to make free Wi-Fi calls to anyone without leaving the kitchen. It can even play music over Bluetooth and has a built-in FM radio. It’s called the Triby, and inside this retro radio-style box is a VoIP speakerphone with a 2.9-inch e-ink display that enables callers to send typed or handwritten messages to the device on your fridge using an associated app.

Triby is the creation of a French company named Invoxia, best known for their high-end conference phone technology. Accordingly, inside the little Triby is technology running high quality speakerphone audio features, including full duplex hands free operation with acoustic echo cancellation and noise reduction technologies with HD Voice support.

The Triby sports a pair of 4-watt speakers with a custom acoustic cavity and a passive radiator to boost the bass. Invoxia claims that the phone’s battery can run on a single charge for almost a month. Triby will be available in mid-2015 with a price tag of $199.

High Fidelity Audio Processing

Conexant Systems is another player in the world of high-fidelity voice and audio processing solutions. Conexant attended CES this year to showcase their AudioSmart solutions designed to make voice communication clearer and more accurate. AudioSmart solutions are tailored to enhance the audio experience for both gaming and VoIP headsets. The AudioSmart voice and speech processing software provides noise cancellation and full-duplex acoustic echo cancellation. These systems can deliver excellent listening performance and voice quality even in noisy, real-world conditions.

The Simpsons Get VoIP

At the booth for their CES launch, businessfriend literature describes the company as, “…the one-stop communications channel that helps you stay connected with the people and professionals that matter the most to you.” businessfriend is a communications utility enabling users to execute all of their business affairs in one mobile-first platform with a single, simple interface. Along with the usual business of sharing documents and running the company calendar businessfriend also supports video chat, IM, and free VoIP calls.

BOND is a Hollywood-centric advertising agency with a successful track record for marketing both films and television. BOND’s client list includes HBO, and their projects have run the gamut from Batman and Jurassic World to The Simpsons. When you’re on the phone negotiating a multi-million dollar contract every agent wants to have perfect sound quality for every client call. BOND opted for a business VoIP solution from Telzio. Unlike their legacy provider, Telzio delivered higher quality and greater usability for less cost. In fact, with the new solution BOND was able to cut their monthly communications costs by over 90 percent.

Telzio's self-service website makes it possible for BOND to manage their own phone system, including adding features, users or phone numbers. All features and users are free with Telzio, making it possible to scale at a minimal cost. Cost savings continue to be one of the biggest drivers in the move to IP telephony, but some of those savings may be up for review.

Not So Free Service

On December 24, India’s biggest telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd announced a proposal to charge their customers for calls made using VoIP. The proposal so upset Airtel’s users and advocates of net neutrality that Airtel withdrew the proposal five days later, but this should still be viewed as a toe in the water by telecoms to monetize what has been a free service.

Until now over-the-top services (OTT) like Skype and Viber have been able to use data networks from telecom firms like Airtel for their service so they could offer voice calls almost free of cost. Initially the telecoms saw this as a way to drive traffic, but then these services began to siphon off some of the telcos’ legacy voice and SMS revenue while consuming bandwidth.

That’s why Airtel floated the possibility of making VOIP calls more expensive as a way to stop the loss of revenue, and that’s why this issue is not going away soon. The telecoms and ISPs will argue that they have made huge investments in broadband capacity and should be allowed to charge OTT providers like Skype and YouTube for their services.  

While you wait to see how the future of VoIP unfolds, as least you’ll be able to measure your daily exposure to air pollution and ultra violet (UV) rays thanks to yet another CES premiere, a new wearable device called Tzoa produced by Vancouver-based Clad Innovations. The Tzoa uses sensors to sample and measure air pollution and UV levels and then maps the data on a real-time crowd-sourced map, so users can track air quality on their smartphones as easily as they can now track traffic congestion.