Rebecca Day

Several U.S. wireless carriers jumped on Samsung’s worldwide Galaxy Note 4 announcements Wednesday in hopes of winning new subscribers in the hotly competitive market. Sprint said it will be the only wireless carrier to offer the U.S. version of the Galaxy Note 4 and the Note Edge capable of running on its high-speed Sprint Spark network (http://on.mktw.net/1rMO8SP). Sprint also told customers it will offer the Gear VR virtual reality headset, also launched Wednesday, that’s designed to use the Galaxy Note 4 as the screen. US Cellular issued an email statement that it could confirm it will carry the Galaxy Note 4 in October and that it will follow up with details later. Verizon Wireless’s landing page led with the Galaxy Note 4 and Edge on Wednesday under the banner “The Next Big Thing is Coming Soon.” Verizon extended an invitation for customers to sign up for email updates on availability with the lure to “Be the first to get product, pre-order and launch details.” AT&T, meanwhile, didn’t show either of the new Samsung Notes, featuring instead on its launch page a free 8 GB iPhone 4s, with contract, along with a smattering of refurbished phones from other carriers. T-Mobile also pushed refurbished phones on its landing page. When we typed Note 4 into the search field, a chat box appeared asking if we needed help.

Roughly 30 percent of smart home owners experience monthly glitches with core functions of connected devices, said research presented by Parks Associates in a recent webinar on the impact of the Internet of Things on support services. Examples of snags homeowners have encountered with smart home products include timing issues with automated lighting control, where lights didn’t come on at the programmed times, thermostats that didn’t keep temperatures to programmed levels, and door locks that didn’t perform as expected, said analyst Patrice Samuels. She called the findings “disconcerting” to smart home owners. “Because these devices are in the earlier stages, they're more susceptible to functional glitches,” Samuels said. But at such an early stage of the category’s development, “you really don’t want anything to go wrong in the devices that are controlling your home,” she said. Support of smart home devices requires a “greater sense of urgency,” she said. Support will be critical to the advancement of the smart home to prevent technology snafus from becoming “barriers to adoption” and the growth of the IoT, Samuels said. Connected entertainment products are more technologically mature, on the other hand, and problems associated with using Blu-ray players, smart TVs, streaming media players and gaming consoles are “less the result of glitches” and more related to quality concerns that can relate to bandwidth, Samuels said. With streaming media players, consumers may complain about sound or picture quality versus being able to play a program. Consumption on streaming media devices and smart TVs has increased “dramatically” over the past year, while consumption on gaming consoles has gone up “pretty steadily” over the past three to four years, said Samuels. The average broadband household owns an average of seven connectable devices, and more consumers are now connecting devices such as game consoles and Blu-ray players to the Internet versus only using their core functions. Demand will continue to increase with IoT growth, said Samuels.

A week after Canada-based ChargeSpot announced the first wireless charger that’s compatible with both Qi and PMA wireless charging standards, the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) asserted its independence with its Qi spec, providing a status report on Qi penetration in offices, restaurants, airports, hotels and public venues. A Qi spokeswoman told us there’s no correlation between WPC’s status report and the ChargeSpot release last week. WPC said Tuesday that the installed base of Qi-enabled wireless chargers reaches 30 countries and more than 1 million locations. “WPC’s 200-strong member companies are fueling exciting innovation of the Qi standard, Qi products and Qi-based business services, which is driving the accelerated adoption of wireless charging by consumers and businesses around the globe,” said John Perzow, WPC vice president-market development, citing 65 models of Qi-enabled phones and “over 500 different products that use Qi.” WPC said companies including Facebook, Google, Texas Instruments and Verizon have installed Qi chargers in corporate meeting rooms; nine McDonald’s restaurants in Germany recently installed Qi chargers, as have several coffee shops in Toronto and a restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kube Systems announced a deal with Marriott Hotels for a Qi charging system, WPC said. Verizon has deployed 800 Qi-enabled charging spots in U.S. airports, while Haier installed charging stations in the Beijing airport and DoCoMo installed Qi charging systems in airports and train stations in Japan, it said. The installed base of Qi chargers charge one device at a time, the spokeswoman said. The company has yet to release its specification for resonant charging that will enable multi-device charging, she said.

Rumors were rampant Friday about production delays for the iPhone 6 on accounts from supply chain sources. According to a Reuters report (http://reut.rs/1q0Nr5f), Apple suppliers are scrambling to get enough screens ready for the new iPhone 6 because a redesign of a “a key component” disrupted panel production. Some accounts speculate that the thinness of the iPhone 6 is causing manufacturing headaches. An Apple news conference scheduled for Sept. 9 has many industry watchers pegging availability for Sept. 19, based on previous Apple roll-out schedules. A delay could threaten the number of phones available at launch, reports say, but rumors of delays for upcoming iPhones are as much a part of the annual runup to a new launch as “exclusives” about design and features. Retailers, meanwhile, continue to clear shelves of the soon-to-be-dated iPhone 5s.

ChargeSpot Wireless Power announced the first wireless charger that’s compatible with both Qi and PMA wireless charging standards. The company called the product an “important step forward” for offices and public locations including hotels, cafes and airports that want to offer wireless charging for cellphone users “without the risk of having to choose between different wireless charging standards.” The ChargeSpot Pocket, designed for installation in public places, installs beneath a surface where it’s hidden from sight, the company said, making it suited to design-centric environments where hygiene and safety concerns come into play. ChargeSpot Pockets are currently installed in coffee shops, hotels and offices in Canada. ChargeSpot CEO Mark Goh told us a wireless charging solution for the Rezence wireless charging standard “is in the pipeline and we'll be there when the market’s ready for Rezence.”

Al Baker, chief operating officer at technology startup Playtabase, sees home health as a largely untapped market for wearables, he said on a media tour in New York. The company is launching an Indiegogo campaign next month for Reemo, a wrist-based wearable designed to help users control their environment through gestures using point-and-control technology. Playtabase was one of 10 companies out of a field of 400 selected for the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator program for technology startups.

Sprint and Sharp are taking a decidedly mid-market approach to the U.S. smartphone market that’s dominated in the U.S. by Apple and Samsung, according to comments executives made at the launch of the Sharp Aquos Crystal smartphone in New York Tuesday. The phone, available on subsidized two-year contract plans for zero down and $10 per month over 24 months -- or $149 on a prepaid plan from Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile -- was launched along with value-oriented data pricing plans from Sprint.

Despite the Wireless Power Consortium’s announcement last week that it has integrated resonant technology into the Qi specification for wireless power, the industry is no closer to a unified wireless power standard, said John Perzow, the consortium’s vice president-market development. “I wish it did,” Perzow said, when we asked if the addition of resonant technology opened the door to a unified standard down the road, but “it does not."

A group of semiconductor and product companies representing a disparate connected devices alliance -- from Freescale Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics and Silicon Labs on the semiconductor side to Big Ass Fans and Nest Labs in the product camp -- announced the formation of the Thread Group Tuesday. The Thread Group’s charter is to steer adoption of Thread, an IP-based wireless networking protocol that promises to improve security, reliability and ease of set-up of connected devices in the home. Other founding members of the Thread Group are ARM and lock company Yale Security.

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia, responding to subscribers’ “overwhelming and touching” support, sent them an email Tuesday urging them to “raise your hands and make your voices heard.” Tweets, emails and Facebook posts “have made it clear how important it is for so many Americans to have access to a cloud-based antenna” for viewing live broadcast TV, he said (http://bit.ly/V8gpUW). He asked subscribers to tell Congress “how disappointed you are that the nation’s highest court issued a decision that could deny you the right to use the antenna of your choice to access live over-the-air broadcast television.” He urged them to tell their stories of why having a cloud-based antenna is important to their families and to “show them you care about this issue.” He asked subscribers to “stand together for innovation, progress, and technology” and directed them to ProtectMyAntenna.org. A company spokeswoman said the email “will be the only statement from Aereo at this time.” The company shut down its streaming video service Saturday (CD July 1 p6).