So, this year, like any previous years, we made the trip to Vegas to see what’s new and interesting at the CES 2017 show. Besides the natural curiosity of someone involved in the technology industry – electronics, in particular – I always try to discover trends and new technologies relevant to our company.

I would like to mention two areas that got a lot of attention, and directly related to us – TeleHealth and Home Automation.

TeleHeath

TeleHealth was part of a larger scope of presentations that included wearable devices, and other at-home or remotely connected devices. These all enable the user (or patient) to monitor health parameters on-the-go and at home. On the higher end of things, these parameters are communicated with a remote physician, so he can help with diagnostics and recommend treatment.

Phoenix has been involved, for quite some time, with this industry. An integral part of the patient – doctor communication is audio. This is true for cases where the doctor wants to speak with the patient; it is also true for monitoring purposes where a patient is bedridden and must be monitored remotely. Our audio devices (speakerphones) are embedded in medical carts, kiosks, robots, and ambulances. They are also mounted on the walls and ceilings of ER and ICUs around the globe. Our ability to work with healthcare providers to tailor our solutions to their specific needs has gained us a leading role in the tele-health industry. Our devices’ reliability, ruggedness, flexibility, and high quality performance play a crucial part in delivering lifesaving remote medical care.

As much as most of the technologies presented at CES were focused around gadget and personal monitoring devices, the sheer level of interest, together with other market indications, give us the confidence that telehealth is about to explode. Phoenix is the go-to choice for the audio link of this market, and we plan to stay that way.

Home Automation

The concept of home automation has been around for many years. It is becoming more of a reality now with all the big players getting actively involved. Part of home automation is the ability to talk to an assistant – like Amazon Echo or Google Home, ask questions, make requests, and operate features within your house.

So, how does Phoenix Audio fit into this market? Well, the current devices available on the market are limited in range. You need to be within a close proximity to them, so that they can understand you. The problem is more severe when you want to apply similar technologies and applications to an industrial and noisy environment. Phoenix Audio has a number of devices that can help with voice pickup. Our OEM products (MT107), Line Array product (Condor), and Distributed Array technology (Stingray – **soon to be announced) enables you to pick up commands from virtually anywhere in your home.

How this possible, you ask? This is not the place and time to elaborate, but we intend to release some new initiatives and provide more details as to how our array products can tap into home automation devices throughout 2017. For now, let’s just say that this is an interesting market and we foresee our technologies solving some of the problems currently facing the market.