dealerscope

  Sony Electronics has announced its latest projectors, which the company is touting as the “world’s smallest WUXGA 3LCD laser projectors.” The models are the  VPL-PHZ61 and the VPL-PHZ51 , and both come outfitted with 4K projection and 55 percent vertical shift capabilities. The VPL-PHZ61has 6,400 lumens and the VPL-PHZ51 has 5,300. Throughout the press release, as well as on the projectors’  webpages , it appears that the intended use cases lie in conference rooms and classrooms. “Many of our customers struggle to find display solutions that provide both exceptional high brightness and sophisticated features that can enhance their content and overall user experience,” said Rich Ventura, Vice President of B2B, Sony Electronics, in a press release. “We don’t want our customers to compromise on any of these asks, which is why we’ve built upon our existing legacy in developing feature-rich laser projectors, to provide compact and advanced projectors to the market. These pro...

  Acer’s new Swift Edge laptop is the company’s venture into the  portable OLED space , which is currently occupied by only a few other tech companies. The Swift Edge comes in at only 2.58 lbs despite having a decently large 16-in. screen. Its thickness is impressive, too, coming in at only 12.95mm thick. It has a 3840 x 2400 screen resolution, displays in 4K HDR, and has an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U eight-core processor. And with a number of other high-end features, like Wi-Fi 6E compatibility, the  Swift Edge  could be a formidable product in the growing portable OLED field. It starts at $1,499.  In other news, Amazon has announced that it is  scaling back its Scout delivery program . For those that don’t know, Scout is the company’s sidewalk-based delivery system which uses cube-shaped, wheeled robots to deliver packages. While not ending the program all together, Amazon will be ending field tests for the delivery bots. This announcement comes as Amazon’s drone ...

  Coffee and tea enthusiasts have probably at some time come across the company  Fellow . It’s a popular maker and seller of high-end brewing equipment, such as kettles that hold their precisely set temperatures for extended periods of time, and  today it has announced  perhaps the most high-end — and high-tech — of electric kettles. The new Stagg EKG Pro can adjust for altitude so the water inside doesn’t boil over, schedule a set time to begin heating and set presets for various types of coffee or tea. The Stagg EKG Pro Studio Edition does all that with a fancier, metal-and-glass design. Launching this month, the EKG Pro starts at $195 and the EKG Pro Studio Edition starts at $225. In other news, yesterday the European Parliament approved a law that will  require devices to use a USB-C  charging port by the end of 2024. While some devices already charge using USB-C, one of the most talked about companies that will have to adapt to this law is Apple. Apple...

Google has announced its Nest Wifi Pro, which is a high-speed router. It supports tri-band Wi-Fi 6E, is equipped with dual-band 802.11ac capabilities, and can connect to 100 devices per router. There is no backwards compatibility with Wi-Fi features as this new Nest Wifi is built differently. Another interesting feature of the new Wifi Pro is that it can act as a Thread border router, which allows for smart home connectivity and even the ability to act as a Matter hub later this year. There are a  number of other features  and specs to this new Wifi Pro, and it will cost $199 for a single router.  In other news, the audio brand House of Marley has announced the  Get Together 2 XL Bluetooth Speaker . The speaker is designed with sustainability in mind, and using bamboo and reclaimed and recycled fabric in part for its build, it manages to be both water and dust resistant with an IP65 rating. It has two 4-in. woofers, 1-in. tweeters and dual-passive radiators, and can ...

  A recent survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that the United States is facing a daunting shortage of semiconductor chips , which are used to manufacture cars, electronics, medical devices, and other products. At the moment, median inventory among chip consumers in the U.S. is down to just five days from 40 days prior to the start of the pandemic. This means that if something unforeseen were to happen to current chip production, such as another COVID-19 outbreak, most companies would only be able to manufacture products for 5 days before being forced to shut down.  Between 2019 and 2021, demand for chips has grown a whopping 17 percent while the supply of chips saw no relative growth. Increasing chip-making capacity is a process that requires significant amounts of lead times and financial investment. For example, Intel has announced that it is investing $20 billion to create chip plants in Ohio, but the factories are only set to begin...

  THE DAILY SCOPE, 1/19/22: BodyGuardz, a device protection solutions provider, released its new Pure 3 screen protector for the Apple iPhone 13. According to BodyGuardz, it is the first and only screen protector to be awarded the Green Product Mark by TÜV Rheinland . The Pure 3 is made up of 30 percent recycled glass and is five times stronger than the stand-alone phone screen. BodyGaurdz also utilizes post-consumer recycled cardboard and biodegradable components in its packaging of the Pure 3 to make sure that every aspect of the wrapping can be curbside recycled . The Green Product Mark certification by TÜV Rheinland is based on three areas of criterion: Prevention of pollution, sustainable use of resources, and climate change mitigation. TÜV Rheinland only awards the certification to companies that responsibly manage their energy usage as well as their air and water pollution footprint. The Green Product Mark is recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection A...

  CES is to PC gaming hardware what E3 is to console gaming software: ground zero for all the newest, most cutting-edge products the consumer electronics industry has to offer. Interestingly, perhaps the most exciting trend at this year’s show was a spate of monitors and televisions designed with gaming in mind: new display technology, more interesting form factors, and faster refresh rates (thanks in part to HDMI 2.1 integration  — more on that in a bit). Of course, this year’s show was another big one for gaming hardware in general, with manufacturers showing off a slew of gaming laptops, VR headsets, and more. We combed through this avalanche of unveilings to come up with some of our top picks from the show. Displays Display technology feels like it’s reaching new heights at a regular clip these days, and manufacturers had an impressive range of gaming monitors at CES 2022. Samsung, for one, showed off the world’s first QD-OLED display in the form of its Odyssey G8QNB 34-inch g...

  THE DAILY SCOPE, 11/18/21: If the proliferation of drugstores on nearly every other corner gets you down, then you’ll be happy to know that CVS will be closing 900 locations over the next three years. It’s part of parent company CVS Health’s strategy to transform its brick-and-mortar retail stores from being merely pharmacies that also sell sundries, consumer packaged goods, groceries, batteries, chargers, cables, cameras, and other small electronics into bonafide medical health facilities.  Remaining stores will be reimagined and redesigned as HealthHUBs where consumers can see their primary care physicians and mental health specialists and get diagnostic tests. Suddenly Abbott President and CEO Robert Ford’s keynote at CES 2022 doesn’t seem so out of place, because a big part of retail’s future will also be healthcare. It’ll be interesting to see how CVS implements self-check-out style technology for diagnostics—that only seems like a matter of time as increasingly telemed...

After 73 years in business spanning three generations, Orsini’s , among appliance retailers , has quite the rich history behind it, and one that continues today through the founders’ grandson, PJ Orsini. Orsini says his grandparents opened up the appliance shop in 1948 in Martinsburg, W.Va., and Orsini’s quickly became a staple of the Eastern Panhandle. His father and uncle took over the family business in the ’90s, heading up appliance sales, appliance services, and appliance installation until they decided it was time to retire and usher in the next generation. When it was PJ’s turn to take charge of the decades-old appliance retailer in 2016, one of his first orders of business was to move Orsini’s to a location that better fit current needs. The original location was just 2,400 square feet, and despite any nostalgia tied to Orsini’s first home, the business was quickly outgrowing its confines. In 2019, Orsini’s relocated to an 18,000-square-foot location with an 8,200-square-foot s...

Around the United States, COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted and the population is getting vaccinated; however, the mental impact of a year spent in a germ-conscious pandemic society remains. Consumers are increasingly conscious of the germs present on the surfaces of the phones, keys, wallets, and other daily accessories and gadgets they carry around all day. Retailers and manufacturers who filled the need for hygiene-conscious products such as UV-C sanitizer devices , smart face masks , and air purifiers during the pandemic are continuing to utilize this increased awareness in the post-pandemic world.    In July, the second-generation Coral UV 2 , an LED UV-C sanitizer and dryer system, will be released for sale directly to consumers. With a sleek stainless steel design, the Coral UV 2 can be placed in any room in the house and eradicates 99.9 percent of bacteria in just 10 minutes. Compared with the original Coral UV sanitizer and dryer that was first ...

Launched by a mix of photographers and technology entrepreneurs two years ago, Berlin Photo Week (BPW) will be held again for the second time since 2019 on August 26-29, 2021 at the Haubentaucher, a multipurpose events venue with exhibition spaces, restaurants, clubs, and a swimming pool in Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district. In addition to booths and installations by major photography brands such as Sony, Panasonic, FujiFilm, and Leica, the three-day event will offer workshops, Instagram-friendly shooting stations, photo tours, lectures, and even opportunities to buy both used and the latest new cameras. In addition, exhibitions of work by established and emerging photographers alike will be held at satellite locations in galleries, museums, and other points of interest across the city. Even though one of its major partner exhibitions, IFA Berlin, won’t take place again until 2022, BPW will continue as scheduled. While it was originally meant as a more art-and-lifestyle-focuse...

High demand for smart mirrors from the automotive industry, new and innovative features offered by smart mirrors, increasing number of internet users and growing adoption of smart devices in connected homes according to consumer preferences, surging demand for AI-powered and IoT-enabled smart home appliances, increasing trend of context-aware signage, and growing adoption of smart signage in retail sector are the key driving factors for the smart display market. However, high risks of theft and breach of customer data hampering the growth of the market. Smart signage to account for largest share  The smart signage market has witnessed various technological advancements and registered remarkable growth over the last few years. Smart signage is among the most demanding and growing platforms that empower many people to access product information and promotions. Various industries are encouraged to deploy smart signage solutions owing to their user-friendly and customer-centric feature...

The refrigerator is one of the most used, yet hardest to organize, appliances in the household. Users of traditional refrigerators often find it difficult to keep track of produce and other perishable items leading to food waste or overstocking. But what if your refrigerator could take inventory and tell you exactly what was in it, then give you recipes using only those ingredients–all without requiring you to open the door? The sixth-generation Family Hub Smart Refrigerator from Samsung, which was unveiled this past week, does just that.    While earlier generations featured Samsung’s proprietary Bixby voice assistant, the new Family Hub refrigerator is the first to come with Alexa built-in, giving a broader swathe of users access to Amazon’s ubiquitous and comprehensive hands-free voice control capabilities. The Family Hub touch screen panel also includes a new feature that allows you to control all of your Samsung smart appliances and devices, stream music, mirror your TV, ...

The rise in popularity of eCommerce platforms allows for previously unachievable interconnectivity within the marketplace. This past week, Nationwide Marketing Group announced the expansion of its eXchange eCommerce platform with a new endless aisle feature. On the eXchange platform, Nationwide members can browse and shop hundreds of brands and thousands of items from the group’s partner distributors and vendors. Designed to support Nationwide members with active eCommerce capabilities, the endless aisle feature allows Nationwide members to take products directly from the eXchange platform and add them to their websites. This gives Nationwide members the ability to experiment with carrying potential products without the commitment of obtaining physical inventory.  “By opening up the endless aisle feature, our retailers can now test certain product lines and brands, experiment with entirely new product categories, adjust their mix for seasonality and availability, and more,” explain...

What’s the history of DataVision?  I’ve been in the consumer electronics and PC businesses for a long time. Before DataVision, I ran a company called United Computer. We were one of the first Apple dealers and then launched the Next computer before Steve Jobs went back to Apple. Then, in 1990, I started DataVision, primarily as a mail-order catalog business, back when everything was thriving in the PC and consumer electronics businesses. For the first two years, before we opened our first retail store, we were catalog-based. We’re one of the first actual computer mail-order businesses, for both consumers and B2B. Then, in 1993, we opened our first flagship store on Fifth Avenue and 39th St. We advertised in Computer Shopper and other magazines, and customers would just call an 800 number to order what they needed.   We’ve always been a major part of the retail landscape in New York, but since we’ve been online since the start of the Web, a big part of the focus of our bus...

The pre-COVID consumer and the peak-COVID consumer each have their discernible differences. But, as the state of the pandemic stands today, it’s time to start preparing for a new consumer who will possesses traits of each: the post-COVID consumer. Because even as things get back to normal, they are not getting back to the same. The Budget and Tech-Savvy Consumer Today’s consumers should not be underestimated when it comes to their tech and budget savviness. They are now armed with the know-how and confidence to seek shopping solutions that work best for them, whether it be shopping online, scheduling curbside pickups, or BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In Store) ordering. Comparing prices and hunting for deals has also never been more prominent. While it is true that we saw many of these habits even before the pandemic, the past year and a half has exceedingly conditioned shoppers to begin their journeys online. Looking ahead, even as stores begin opening at full capacity and lifting mask p...

Black Friday is five months away, but retailers are already considering the best strategies to reel in customers — and a key part of that is embracing e-commerce. Last year, there was virtually zero in-person shopping for Black Friday because the coronavirus pandemic severely limited retail and forced many stores to close. Some large retail chains, like GameStop, closed more than 462 brick-and-mortar locations in favor of selling entirely online. Storefronts that weren’t purged were mainly used as in-store pickup points for online buyers. Coresight’s senior analyst, John Harmon, told Dealerscope that while malls were once typically the hot destination for Black Friday or Cyber Monday, that’s no longer the case. “This year, many consumers remain reluctant to visit stores and malls (28.9 percent as of the Jun e 14 Coresight Research survey) and have increasingly warmed to online shopping, much of which will become permanent,” he said. “Though still reluctant, consumers are less reluctant...

WiSA today announced the WiSA SoundSend Certified program, a new certification initiative developed to ensure seamless connectivity and interoperability with the WiSA SoundSend wireless audio transmitter. The program was developed by the Association to work with TV manufacturers, and the first on board is Toshiba’s REGZA TV. Other smart TVs can earn this certification status as well once they undergo a series of tests to ensure perfect connectivity with SoundSend. This includes testing all audio connection and control requirements between the SoundSend and the smart TV. “Now more than ever, smart TVs are at the center of the home cinema and con tinue to deliver more and better immersive content,” says WiSA President, Tony Ostrom. “WiSA is helping its TV manufacturing members across the globe easily acquire this standout certification as they’re witnessing SoundSend prove to be an integral part of seamless, wireless home cinema while allowing connection to incredible speaker solutions f...

  A home audio system is, by definition, a bit of a luxury. There are lots of practical applications for sound in both commercial and residential environments, including privacy, wellness, and notification, but most homeowners think of audio strictly in terms of entertainment. It’s a want, not a need — as such, customers’ appetite for investing in audio tends to be correlated to two things: passion and knowledge. In order to guide customers to the right audio solution, dealers need to help them honestly and accurately locate themselves on the passion scale, and arm them with the knowledge to get the results they truly want. Some people love music, and some people just enjoy it. This same distinction extends to other forms of luxury. There are those who like food and indulge in an ice cream cone as a treat, and there are those who love food and save up all year for a multi-course tasting menu prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. People who like movies will play one ...

Skullcandy Inc., makers of affordable stereo headphones and true wireless earbuds, announced a partnership with Bragi, inventor and largest intellectual property owner of true wireless headphones. With Bragi’s software platform featuring embedded AI, Skullcandy now has the ability to create truly smart, future-proof audio products. “Skullcandy has earned our market-leading position due to a keen obsession with our consumer’s adventurous uses,” says Jason Hodell, CEO at Skullcandy. “Giving our fans the freedom to enjoy their content, control their earbuds and enable communications all without taking off their gloves or letting go of the handlebars is an exciting adv ancement for our brand.” A key component of the partnership is the capability to go hands-free with simple voice commands. Users will be able to start and control their media player and accept or reject incoming calls with or without internet. Skullcandy offers direct access to any native voice assistant for seamless functio...