
Key Series Premium T18NC True Wireless Active Noise Canceling Earbuds
Key Series, an audio brand from Aukey, a large manufacturer from China, released the true wireless T18NC earbuds, a new Bluetooth 5 product, combining a stunning design with good quality materials and specifications, including active noise cancelling. According to Key Series, the T18NC provides a premium, quality experience as anyone would expect from a high-end quality earbud manufacturer, at a very affordable price.

Lithe Audio Introduces Modular Ceiling Speaker Including WiSA For Wireless Sound
At ISE 2020, visitors could find multiple companies looking ahead and offering Audio-over-IP networking solutions, fast becoming the norm among system integrators. Other companies, like UK-based Lithe Audio have installation solutions that offer the complete scope of connectivity options for residential or commercial audio, combining Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Chromecast Audio and AirPlay2. At ISE 2020, Lithe Audio surprised also by showing a WiSA ceiling speaker that even offers an optional PoE module.

SoundHound Partners With Wcities to Bring Extensive Location and Event Data to Houndify’s Voice AI Platform
SoundHound, the voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technology company, announced a partnership with Wcities, a travel and entertainment content publisher specializing in city guides and event aggregators, to bring location-based events data to the Houndify voice AI platform. This new collaboration will provide developers using Houndify with information on more than 3 million events worldwide to include in voice-enabled apps and services via Wcities’ eventseeker APIs.

Renesas Electronics and Panthronics Announce Collaboration to Combine Wireless Charging and NFC
Renesas Electronics, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, and Panthronics AG, a fabless semiconductor company from Austria, specializing in high performance wireless products, jointly announced they are collaborating to bring best-in-class solutions combining Renesas wireless charging technology and Panthronics NFC technology. Combining Qi wireless chargers with NFC will create superior solutions for consumer and industrial applications.

Bluesound Professional Commercial Audio Solutions Powered by BluOS Steal the Show at ISE 2020
At ISE 2020, Lenbrook International offered an extensive showcase of audio solutions for residential applications, now extended significantly also to commercial audio installation thanks to the introduction of a comprehensive range of Bluesound Professional controllers, streamers, amplifiers, and speakers, all leveraging the powerful BluOS streaming software platform. At the Amsterdam show, Bluesound Professional announced the integration with multiple commercially-licensed music streaming services.

New Record for Smart Speakers As Global Sales Reached 146.9 Million in 2019
The global smart speaker market reached a new high in 2019 with sales of 146.9 million units, an increase of 70% on 2018, according to new research from Strategy Analytics. Amazon remained the leading brand with a share of 26.2%, down from 33.7% 2018. Google retained second place with a 20.3% share, also down from 25.9% the previous year. Chinese vendors Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi all increased their shares, while Apple remained in sixth place with 4.7%.

Biamp Adds Wireless USB and Content Sharing to Meeting Solutions Portfolio With Purchase of HRT
During ISE 2020, Biamp announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire another company with a product portfolio that expands significantly its offering for meeting rooms and collaboration applications. This time it was Huddle Room Technology (HRT), a company based in Modena, Italy, which adds an innovative family of Huddle Hub wireless USB and content sharing products to its extensive range of meeting room solutions.

Data-Over-Sound Pioneer Chirp Acquired by Sonos
Founded in 2011 and with a very promising trajectory of industry partnerships and growth, Chirp.io, the British data-over-sound company announced that it was acquired by Sonos, the wireless speaker company from Santa Barbara, California. With this new acquisition, that follows closely on other investments in voice- and edge-processing technologies, Sonos shows serious ambitions to expand its connected ecosystem of smart devices into the smart home and beyond.

Bose Professional and Sennheiser Join Forces in Conference Room Applications
During ISE 2020, Sennheiser and Bose Professional announced the Bose ES1 Ceiling Audio Solution, optimized for unified communication platforms. The bundle consists of the Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 microphone and three Bose products: the ControlSpace EX-440C conferencing digital signal processor, the EdgeMax EM180 in-ceiling loudspeaker and the PowerSpace P2600A amplifier. The solution ensures a transparent and reliable technology experience with no audio devices on the walls or tabletops, creating a modern-looking meeting room.

Funktion-One Launches its Smallest Ever Loudspeakers at ISE 2020
British speaker manufacturer Funktion-One decided to return to the ISE show for the first time since 2014. And the reason why it did so, was to launch two compact loudspeaker models – the F5 speaker and the SB8 bass unit – designed for the installation market. According to Funktion-One founder, Tony Andrews, “though the F5 and SB8 are small in size, they are capable of the high-performance standards that we demand from all of our loudspeaker innovations.”