European Custom Installer

Acoustic Geometry announces the StarField Ceiling Tiles-- an acoustic ceiling panel with a starry sky effect designed for use in home theatres and media rooms as well as studios, retail spaces and restaurants/bars wanting a "wow" factor.

Designed to add the beauty of a night sky to any room with a drop-in ceiling, the tiles are a more affordable alternative to the original, custom-only StarField Ceiling Panels from the company. Fabric-wrapped fibreglass panels improve sound quality in any space, taming reverberation and ambient noise, and connect to main lighting control systems via RS232 adapter.

Vivotek launches three panoramic and multi-sensor cameras-- the CC9381-HV, MS9321-EHV and MA9322-EHTV, all featuring H.265 and Vivotek Smart Stream III video compression technology, WDR Pro and oudoor-certified housing.

Also safeguarding the cameras is Trend Micro IoT security. Each is designed for versatile applications, with different numbers of sensors, vertical fields of view (FOV) and IR dstances, allowing users to increase operational efficiency through a single camera. For instance, the CC9381-HV features a compact design, 5MP resolution and a 120-degree vertical FOV together with 15m IR illuminators.

Glasgow-made hifi specialist Linn announces a first Bluetooth wireless speaker-- the Series 3, an egg-shaped number based on the Linn streaming platform offering plug and play setup, another first for the company.

The distinctive cabinet of the Series 3 is in cast mineral ceramic, and includes an electro-plated gold grille. It carries a 19mm silk dome tweeter and a 160mm long throw mid-base woofer, together with two 100W Class D amplifiers. The speaker is high-resolution enabled up to 24-bit 192kHz, and supports FLAC, ALAC, WAV, MP3, WMA, AIFF, AAC and Ogg files (but not MQA). Proprietary Exakt technology claims to reduce phase errors by delaying higher frequencies, making sure they arrive at the same time as lower frequencies to reduce degradation caused by signal processing.

According to Juniper Research, the number of voice assistants is set to grow from 105 million in 2019 to 555m by 2024, with Chinese vendors driving the market through increased participation.

The analyst says voice assistants are an "an increasingly crucial element" in the smart home, bringing interoperability platforms to enable seamless smart home control. As one might expect, Amazon is the top vendor thanks to heavy investment from the Alexa Fund, as well as the advanced hub features in the Echo Plus and Alexa Skills enabling a vast 3rd party app ecosystem. Further bolstering the position of Alexa are high-profile Amazon acquisitions such as Blink, Ring and Eero.

Extron announces an addition to the IN1804 four-input scaler family-- the IN1804 DI/DO, a device offering video scaling, switching and integration features with support HDMI 2.0 data rates and HDCP 2.2 compliance.

To ensure best-in-class image quality the switcher incorporates the Extron-exclusive Vector 4K scaling engine with 4:4:4 chroma sampling and 30-bit internal video processing. A DTP2 input and DTP2 output allow for easy AV and control signal extension up to 100m per endpoint over a shielded CATx cable.