On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

US speaker maker KLH makes a move into the European market with the release of a first pair of headphones-- the Ultimate One, over-ear open-air headphones featuring 50mm beryllium drivers inside real ebony wood earcups.

Launched at the 2019 MTV Movie and TV Awards, the Ultimate One headphones include a hand-stitched headband and dual-layer memory foam in the ear pads for comfort and support in long listening sessions. Inside are the aforementioned 50mm beryllium drivers claiming frequency response of 18kHz-22kHz and a sensitivity rating of 97dB.

“Our design goal with the KLH Ultimate One was to deliver a rich, enveloping musical experience that, simply put, elevates the soul,” KLH says. “Given the amount of overwhelmingly enthusiastic responses we have received from critics, celebrities and consumers, we have achieved just that.”

Global shipments of wearable devices are set to reach 222.9 million units in 2019 before reaching 302.3m in 2023 with a CAGR of 7.9%, IDC reports-- with smartwatches and ear-worn devices accounting for over 70% of shipments by 2023.

"Not only is the market diversifying in terms of form factors, but it is also diversifying in terms of connectivity and distribution," the analyst says "Among all watches, close to half will have the ability to connect to a cellular network by 2023 as consumers along with enterprises and healthcare look to free the watch from the phone and as telcos push forward subsidies or financing options for watches with cellular service."

Wearables will not only see more devices, but also more use cases. For instance, smartwatches will move deeper into health and fitness to connect with multiple applications and systems, both at work and within the home. Meanwhile ear-worn devices will nudge into areas such as language translation, smart assistant deployment and coaching, all while continuing to provide audio.

As one of the biggest providers of streaming video in the world, Netflix has something of an annual tradition-- a list of the best TVs of the year, at least if the customer solely wants to use said TV to consume streaming video.

Netflix judges TVs according to a very specific set of criteria, all related to the service. Thus, the TV needs to be able to instantly power on and remember where the viewer left off, have an easily accessible Neflix icon on the UI, get to Netflix within a few seconds, switch quickly and easily between apps and, perhaps obviously, support the latest version of Netflix.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announces a 4th version of the titular micro-PC-- the Raspberry Pi 4, an upgrade promising "PC-like levels of performance," at least for "most users."

The Raspberry Pi 4 carries a 1.5GHz quad-core Broadcom processor (up from 1.4GHz in the previous model), a 500MHz VideoCore VI GPU (up from 400MHz) and up to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM. The result, the makers claim, is a tiny machine able to handle 4K 60fps video through the support for HEVC video, as well as dual-monitor support via dual micro-HDMI ports.