Amazon hopes to strengthen wi-fi coverage throughout homes by its investment Luma-- a new home “mesh” wi-fi system that bills itself as “improved broadband coverage at an affordable price.”

The Luma device is hexagon in shape and, while palm-sized, provides a high-five solution for deploying wi-fi. Reports say Amazon wants to integrate Echo's feature “Alexa” in this new device as a showpiece.

If the answer to better wi-fi coverage is mesh networking as used by large enterprises, then Luma is on the right path and deserves all its celebrity backing. Luma is backed by top venture capital firms such as Felicis Ventures, Base Ventures, BIP Capital, Relay Ventures, and Webb Investment Network.

Other investors include Vijay Balasubramaniyan (co-founder of Pindrop Security), Chad Byers (general partner at Susa Ventures), Adam Ghetti (founder of Ionic), Omar Johnson (CMO of Beats By Dre), Erik Norlander, Tom Noonan (co-founder of Internet Security Systems), Kirk Posmantur (CEO of Axcess), Hans Robertson (co-founder of Meraki), Jed York (CEO of the 49ers) and others.

“We squeezed mesh networking, content filtering, mobile device management and cybersecurity into a little good-looking device,” says co-founder Dr. Paul Judge. “Each device communicates with app via Bluetooth and helps you find the best place in your house to put it. The Lumas then all communicate wirelessly to build the ideal mesh network for your house. They communicate about traffic patterns and network interference then they automatically tune and reconfigure on the fly to optimize performance at all times.”

Go Luma Wi-Fi System

Customers wanting a simple means to extend the range of home wifi can find an ideal solution with the Devolo Wifi Repeater ac, a device the company says provides transfer rates reaching up to 1200Mbit/s.

The repeater uses both 2.4 and 5GHz wireless networking bands to allow for more flexibility in automatic channel selection, as well as faster combined networking speeds. It also includes an integrated LAN port for the wired connection of another device, such as a smart TV, PC, game console, STB or NAS drive.

The Domotz home intelligence product and remote tech support offering sets to get further capabilities as the company acquires Fing, the network scanning mobile device app described as one of the most popular in the world.

Launched back in 2011, the Fing app allows users to quickly scan a network and see all connected devices, evaluate security levels, detect intruders and resolve network issues through a smartphone. The app boasts 12 million downloads and 6 million active users performing over 600000 network scans daily, discovering billions of connected devices every year around the world.

“At Fing, we have always believed in building networking apps that are seamless to use and productive for our users,” the developers say. “We are very excited to continue our work together with Domotz on new products and innovations that are even more relevant and loved by our user base.”

Extron Electronics introduces the DSC HD-HD 4K Plus A and DSC HD-HD 4K Plus A xi, the AV industry’s first scalers that can process 4K/60 video signals at 4:4:4. HDCP 2.2 compliant HDMI 2.0 inputs and outputs support data rates up to 18 Gbps.

The DSC HD-HD 4K Plus A xi provides the added flexibility of scaling and managing 4K/60 as a dual path signal. The scalers provide many integrator-friendly features, such as on-screen display, stereo audio embedding and de-embedding, internal test patterns, and the ability to display custom on-screen images and logos.

Extron announces the FOX II 4K Series for the extension, switching and distribution of 4K video, multi-channel audio and bidirectional control signals over fibre optic cabling.

The series consists of the FOX II T DP 4K and FOX II T HD 4K fiber optic transmitters for DisplayPort and HDMI, and the FOX II R DP 4K with a Type 2 dual‑mode DisplayPort output to support DisplayPort and HDMI 4K resolution displays.

The extenders provide signal extension of up to 2km over multimode fibre optic cabling and up to 30km over singlemode cable. Both transmitters include buffered loop-through for a local monitor at the source, while the FOX II R DP 4K provides audio de-embedding and balanced return analog stereo audio output to support a remote audio source at the receiver.

Altinex launches  the Anywire TP315-101 and TP315-102-- a transmitter/receiver system allowing installers to send 1080p/60Hz HDMI signals over any type of copper wire, including speaker wire and low-voltage wire.

The system can also use any type of CAT wires and coax wires, among others. The system transmits live video and computer video signals with synchronised audio for up to 180m, even without the use of CAT6 cable.

The TP315-101 transmitter pushes HDMI signals via two-conductor cable, while the TP315-102 receiver allows receipt of the same signal. A single TP315-101 transmitter can drive up to four TP315-102 receivers using either four individual wire pairs or by daisy chaining receivers.