TP-Link’s Tapo smart home ecosystem gained a host of new products at CES 2025, including new home security cameras, smart lighting products—including a bona fide NVR system. But if the recent stories about security flaws in TP-Link routers gives you pause, TP-Link assures us that there’s no longer any connection between it—TP-Link Systems—and China’s TP-Link Technologies. A TP-Link Systems spokesperson told us the company manufactures its products in Brazil and Vietnam, not China, and that it “owns its own factories, designs and manufactures its products, and controls its full supply chain.” With that out of the way, let’s talk about the new Tapo products, starting with home security. Tapo PalmKey Smart Door Lock TP-Link The Tapo PalmKey Smart Door Lock features palm-vein recognition technology that scans the intricate, unique patterns of veins in your hand. The company said this delivers unparalleled accuracy and security, surpassing traditional fingerprint or facial-recognition systems. Its scanner is designed to work flawlessly even with wet, dirty, or dry hands, ensuring reliable access for all family members, regardless of age or physical condition. The lock includes seven other lock/unlock methods as well: Fingerprint, PIN codes, Wi-Fi remote control, a physical key, and third-party integration. It employs multi-layer encryption to safeguard user data and features a 10,000 mAh rechargeable battery with USB Type-C port for charging. Designed to withstand extreme conditions, the lock is IP65 weatherproof. New Tapo security cameras TP-Link promises compact Tapo C675D Kit, 4K dual-lens security camera can eliminate blind spots thanks to a wide-angle camera that sits on top of an independently controlled pan/tilt camera. Both cameras boast 4K resolution, and they both connect to an included solar panel to keep their batteries topped off. Unless other dual-lens cameras we’ve seen, the Tapo C675D is remarkably compact and non-industrial looking. Tapo’s NVR (network video recorder) supports both Wi-Fi and PoE security cameras and can record 24/7, not just when triggered by motion or something else.Michael Brown/Foundry If you have a large property and need to deploy a camera at the perimeter, far from your Wi-Fi rounter, a 4G camera was your best solution. But that entails adding a monthly fee for the service. Today’s Wi-Fi HaLow now offers a subscription-free alternative, and you can get it with TP-Link’s Tapo C6165D security camera, which also comes with a solar panel to keep its battery topped off. The Tapo C6165D can also be paired with TP-Link’s all-new Tapo NVR Security Camera System, which is capable of capturing video 24/7, instead of only in response to motion or some other trigger. It’s an 8-channel NVR (network video recorder) that can accommodate up to a 20TB hard drive for recording from 8 cameras simultaneously. You can either buy it with a hard drive preinstalled or provide your own. The NVR system can accommodate wireless cameras that support the ONVIF video format, or you can connect PoE (Power over Ethernet) cameras if you don’t want to worry about recharging batteries. AI processing performed locally—not in the cloud—can describe what the cameras have recorded, making it much easier to find the footage you’re looking for. Tapo Atom Link smart lighting TP-Link’s Atom Link lighting system communicates over both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth mesh.Michael Brown/Foundry Few things are more annoying than having your smart lighting fail because your internet connection is down. The Tapo Atom Link lighting system promises to make that problem a thing of the past by connecting to both your Wi-Fi network and Bluetooth mesh. Should your broadband connection or router fail, or if one of the lights has a weak Wi-Fi signal, they can automatically switch over to Bluetooth mesh to retain control. The Atom Link product family includes smart bulbs, smart downlights, and smart switches to cover all the bases. The Tapo app, meanwhile, lets you create dynamic lighting environments, set schedules, and adjust brightness and color temperature. Alexa and Google Home are also supported for voice commands, and TP-Link’s AI can even create lighting scenes based on the Tapo products you have in your home. TP-Link Tapo expects to ship each of these product by Spring 2025, with pricing to be announced closer to launch. Read...

As the new Trump administration prepares to take office, the Consumer Technology Association is warning again that any proposed tariffs could cause consumer technology prices to skyrocket. The CTA began sounding the tariff warning bells last year. In the middle of CES, it provided updated information on the specific effects of those tariffs on specific products. Since President Trump has yet to take office, it’s not clear whether he would impose tariffs, which the CTA believes he can do without congressional approval. But the possibility is still alarming. As others have done, the CTA is considering two scenarios: a 10 percent tariff on all imports, as well as a 60 percent on all products imported from China; and a 20 percent tariff on all imports, and a 100 percent tariff on Chinese manufactured goods. If a retailer or consumer wants to import an item upon which a tariff has been imposed, they must pay the cost of the item plus an additional fee to the U.S. Not surprisingly, many regard these as taxes — including, apparently, President Trump, who has indicated that higher tariffs could offset tax cuts made elsewhere. The CTA, naturally, doesn’t want its member companies to bear this burden. “At their core, these proposals are tools for the U.S. government to grab as much tax revenue as possible from the American people,” the CTA said in a report made public on Thursday. “We have seen this movie before and know the ending. The proposed tariffs will not create more employment or manufacturing in the U.S. In fact, the opposite may happen where our productivity decreases and jobs may be lost over time when workers and businesses have less affordable access to technology.” Buyers of laptops, smartphones, and tablets would face the greatest impact, the report said. The CTA’s assessment of the additional tariffs on various consumer products. (Source: CTA) Under the 10/70 scenario, laptops and tablets would see a sharp 45 percent increase in retail costs, the CTA said, translating to about $357 more per laptop as well as $201 per tablet. Smartphones would cost about $213 more, while video-game consoles would cost about $246 more. Displays prices would jump by about $109. “The proposed tariffs would prove to be particularly expensive for purchasers of laptops and tablets,” the CTA wrote. “Current U.S. tariffs on these products are zero, and they are not subject to any Section 301 tariffs on China either. The proposed tariffs effectively would impose a 57.3 percent tax on laptop and tablet imports.” If Trump were to enact a more aggressive 20/120 scenario, things would get worse. Under this scenario, laptop prices would jump by $540, or 68 percent. Tablets would increase in price by $304. Smartphone prices would jump 37 percent, to $305, while video-game consoles would soar by 58 percent, to an additional $356 out of pocket. The problem? The U.S. doesn’t have a computer-manufacturing industry. Since it does not, retailers and consumers would be forced to pay the tariffs, regardless. The CTA estimates that U.S. consumers would instead curtail their spending dramatically, reducing laptop purchases by about 44 percent. The report can be downloaded from the CTA website for free. Read...

CES 2025 was a good one for gamers, who were treated to Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs and hints of AMD’s next-gen Radeon RX 9070 GPUs. We also saw the unveiling of the laptop variants of the GeForce RTX 50 Series, with a range of products starting with the RTX 5070. Next in the series would be the RTX 5070 Ti, then RTX 5080, then RTX 5090 variants, with escalating price points for each. Nvidia The RTX 5070 laptop variant is the one that sticks out to me, with it having a significantly lower price of just $1,299. But if that sounds enticing to you, be warned — it’s also hiding a terrible secret. 8GB of VRAM isn’t enough in 2025 The $1,299 starting price of the GeForce RTX 5070 laptop may seem appealing at first glance, especially compared to the top-dog RTX 5090 starting at $2,899, but it only has 8GB of VRAM. Sure, it packs the same technology as its more expensive brethren, such as DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation. New 5th-generation tensor cores and 4th-generation ray tracing (RT) cores give the entire lineup an upgrade, too. And the VRAM is of the speedy, efficient GDDR7 variety that’s new for RTX 50 Series Blackwell GPUs. But that’s about the end of the good news. Even if the VRAM is of the new variety, to only have 8GB of it is still sorely lacking in 2025. The features that Nvidia wants you to experience, such as ray tracing and higher texture gaming, suffer greatly against VRAM limits. Nvidia is likely hoping that its suite of hardware upgrades, such as improved RT cores, tensor cores, and DLSS 4, will help make up for some of that. PCWorld’s Adam Patrick Murray tweeted a quote from a press Q&A with Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang on the RTX 5070’s 8GB of VRAM: “We strive to reach a balance between the [whole system]. We don’t always hit the right balance, but that’s the goal.” The statement is telling. Even Nvidia seems to admit that 8GB of VRAM isn’t ideal, but they’re OK with cutting that corner to achieve “balance” for the whole system — in this case, that likely means hitting that mouth-watering price point. Of course, it isn’t easy to just “add more VRAM.” To do that, you have to work around the GPU specs and consider what it can support without affecting other areas of the laptop’s engineering. Nvidia has to keep in mind the svelte thickness of its laptops, together with power efficiency and battery life. All of that matters. All of that is much easier to achieve when you only have 8GB of VRAM to play with. Nvidia In the past, gamers kicked up a fuss over 8GB desktop GPUs like the RTX 4060 Ti, which harmed its overall popularity. And while laptops often get a pass on cut corners since we know they need to compromise for form factor, 8GB of VRAM just isn’t what we want to see. The desktop RTX 5070 will carry 12GB of VRAM, and that’s the bare minimum for a next-generation GPU costing $549. AMD at least has the sense to pack 16GB of VRAM in its GPUs in this very price range. Nvidia Sure, you can explain that away by saying discrete GPUs typically have better specs and more VRAM than their mobile counterparts. After all, the RTX 4090 laptop variants came with 16GB of VRAM, a significant 8GB shy of the desktop RTX 4090. But Nvidia knows gamers want more VRAM. Just look at the updated 16GB RTX 4070 Ti Super, which put the original 12GB RTX 4070 Ti to rest. So why the 8GB choice here? And this decision raises another question: Will the desktop RTX 5060 variant also come in at only 8GB of VRAM like the RTX 40 Series generation? We hope not. But seeing an 8GB RTX 5070 on the laptop side doesn’t instill confidence in those other products. Is there a silver-lining to this? Apart from the price, one minor silver lining is that the power draw of the RTX 5070 laptop will land in the 50-to-100-watt range, a slight improvement over the RTX 5070 Ti laptop with its 60-to-115-watt range. Yet while every watt matters in a small form factor, I’d bet gamers would trade some heat and battery life for a few more GBs of VRAM. You really have to stretch to find any positives for 8GB of VRAM in 2025. Nvidia does have its Blackwell architecture improvements to point to, along with the more efficient hardware in the RTX 5070, as well as AI-driven improvements via DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation. But are 5th-generation tensor cores and 4th-generation RT cores enough to make 8GB of VRAM tick along? Even if the answer is yes, you can’t deny that they’d help even more with 12GB of VRAM. It’s hard to justify 8GB of VRAM in a premium gaming laptop. We questioned it during a Full Nerd podcast episode from 2023 as we know that many modern games can easily topple with that little VRAM. Even Apple has upgraded its entry-level Macs past the 8GB threshold, and we all know how stingy Apple can be with its specs. From initial specs, the new RTX 5070 laptop seems like a pass. You’d likely be better off with the RTX 5070 Ti version for just a few hundred more. Of course, we won’t know for sure until we conduct our full reviews… but I have a feeling the results will confirm that 8GB of VRAM just won’t cut it in today’s gaming landscape. If you want a powerful gaming laptop at an affordable price point, check out our picks for the best gaming laptops under $1,000. Read...

xMEMS Labs is showing off a new speaker technology at CES that has the potential to shake the foundations of the commercial audio industry and revolutionize the way we both experience and produce music. These all-silicon speakers are incredibly tiny and have the potential to allow designers to move past the limitations imposed by the coil-and-magnet drivers that have dominated audio playback for more than a century. I got an in-person demo from xMEMS VP of marketing Mike Housholder during the event, and it’s now apparent that the technology will be entering the consumer market sooner rather than later. The big news is introduction of the Sycamore MEMS loudspeaker, the company’s first all-silicon speaker, and the the µCooling fan-on-a-chip. xMEMS Labs’ Sycamore MEMS chip.xMEMS Labs The Sycamore MEMS loudspeaker represents a genuine leap forward in what xMEMS calls “micro fidelity” audio. Consider it a radical departure from traditional speaker design, swapping out the coil and magnet systems for an all-silicon platform. “We’ve replaced paper and plastic diaphragms with silicon,” Housholder explained during the presentation, highlighting the unique thin-film piezoelectric layer that drives Sycamore’s sound production. At just one-seventh the size and one-third the thickness of conventional drivers, Sycamore offers designers unprecedented flexibility to create slimmer, more stylish devices. If you’ve been paying attention to the in-ear headphone market, you might have heard that xMEMS speakers are already on the market. That’s true, but the units that are currently for sale utilize the company’s Cypress speaker, with is essentially an all-silicon tweeter augmented by a traditional driver that handles the low end frequenices. This solution compensated for a time when the MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) technology could not reproduce the full audio spectrum. Those hybrid speakers are now available in true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds featuring xMEMS technology. The Creative Aurvana Ace and Soundpeats Capsule3 Pro+ have earned accolades for their sound quality, which Housholder said is “punching and competing with the big boys in the market.” Consumers can also check out the Noble Audio FoKus Triumph and the new Creative Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds. Creative Aurvana Ace 2 truly wireless earbuds.Creative Labs While that’s been a promising technology, the star of the show was a demo of earbuds that utilize the new Sycamore chip. xMEMS has solved the full audio spectrum problem. While the most finicky audiophiles might claim to miss some sound at the very low end of the spectrum, the untuned earbuds reveal that these speakers are ready for commercial products today, and it’s exciting to think about how much they can improve as audio engineers begin to work with them. Sycamore is also geared for integration into devices where space is at a premium: Think smartwatches, augmented reality glasses, and open wireless stereo earbuds. I saw demos of all three and the smartwatch case was especially impressive. When strapped onto my wrist, audio had much better clarity than what I get from an Apple Watch. This will be great for notifications as well as phone calls. Housholder also suggests that a thin Cypress speaker will give phone manufacturers more space for other components and offer an opportunity to make future smartwatches much thinner than what we’re using today. During the CES presentation, Housholder also touched on the broader implications of MEMS speakers for spatial audio, showing a set of over-ear headphones that have multiple speakers built into each earcup, a development that offers the opportunity for a new approach to immersive audio. “What you need for spatial audio is phase accuracy and consistency, and that’s what you get with silicon,” he explained. Sycamore and Cypress bring perfectly matched left-right speaker pairs, improving localization accuracy by up to 30 percent—a boon for applications like gaming headsets. xMEMS Labs’ Sycamore speaker-on-a-chip promises to radically improve the audio quality of smart watches.James Barber/Foundry But Sycamore isn’t the only headline act. xMEMS’ µCooling system tackles a completely different problem: thermal management in ultra-mobile devices. µCooling is the first active micro-cooling solution built on a solid-state, all-silicon platform. Just 1 millimeter thick, this fan-on-a-chip operates silently and without vibrations—an ideal fit for thin smartphones, tablets, and AI-powered gadgets. “For the first time, manufacturers can integrate active cooling in mobile devices without compromising their form factor,” said Housholder. xMEMS’ innovations are rapidly gaining adoption, with major manufacturers integrating their transducers into products slated for release this year. For Sycamore, Housholder confirmed that “alpha customers” are already testing these components, with production-ready designs expected mid-year. Look for MEMS technology to make its first impact in the in-ear headphone and wearable speaker markets, but things start to get really interesting when you contemplate what designers will be able to do with directional audio once they can include multiple tiny speakers in a headphone or—eventually—a car audio system. xMEMS is on the forefront of a genuinely new technology, and there’s a real possibility that we’ll look back at this time as the beginning of something really exciting and genuinely new in the audio world. Read...

CES 2025 was packed with all kinds of techie announcements, but for me the highlight was all the new graphics cards. Nvidia and AMD both played their hands with next-generation products, with some caveats. Nvidia certainly stole the show, with the GeForce RTX 50 Series announcement serving as the key opening message in CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote speech. AMD was much softer in its talk, with sparse details on its new RDNA 4 graphics cards, resulting in similarly sparse enthusiasm. Let’s go over what we learned from both companies about their GPUs and where your attention should be in 2025. The good and the almost good… Right off the bat, here’s the good news for us: We’re definitely getting some new GPUs, starting with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 50 Series. The top-dog in that group will be the RTX 5090, featuring a staggering 32GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM. According to Nvidia, it may be as much as twice as fast as the outgoing flagship RTX 4090. While that’s certainly impressive, Nvidia is likely basing its claims on its DLSS 4 numbers, which feature several new technologies that help it achieve all this. Chief among them is Multi Frame Generation, using the power of AI to reach higher peaks in performance with little to no apparent drawbacks. Nvidia Even more impressive is the claim by Nvidia that the new RTX 5070 will have similar performance to the RTX 4090. That’s a bold statement considering that the RTX 5070 will have an MSRP of $549 while the RTX 4090 sold with an MSRP of $1,599. (More on this later, as once again AI is a big factor in these results.) The high end GPUs — such as the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 — also look promising, with both having 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM. The RTX 5080 appears to be half of what the RTX 5090 is, both in hardware specs along with its $999 MSRP. That’s where the good news is. Pricing. The GeForce RTX 5080 has stuck with the revamped $999 price point of its RTX 4080 Super predecessor, a marked improvement over the original RTX 4080’s unpopular $1,199. The RTX 5070 fares even better at $549, a $50 reduction compared to the current RTX 4070 Super’s $599 price tag. Couple with that a decent performance increase and it’s clearly a good value for the money. The RTX 5070 Ti also sees a price drop to $749, which is good news if you’re shopping in the high end. But then we have an outlier in the group: the mighty RTX 5090, which climbed 25 percent of the RTX 4090’s price, up to $1,999. Yet while that might seem steep, early rumors pinned the price of the RTX 5090 at well over this amount. We won’t know for sure until we review this GPU, but the price increase could be justified on paper. Not only does it feature a first-ever 32GB of VRAM in a gaming GPU, but the rest of the spec sheet also reads like a superhero comic book. It will be a stellar GPU for not just gaming, but productivity and other workloads, too. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry The new technologies embedded within these GPUs will produce some stunning games in the future. Nvidia’s neural rendering looks very promising, utilizing the the 5th generation tensor cores. Upgraded RT cores will also have a significant impact on ray tracing, something that enthusiast gamers have started to find almost necessary for the most visually pleasing eye candy. These demanding technologies pair like fine wine with DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation, erasing any FPS performance penalties while not impacting visuals to a noticeable degree. Note: Early performance numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, of course, because Nvidia is showcasing the likes of DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation for its new GPUs. We don’t yet have the full context of what performance will be like across most games, especially those that may not support these new technologies. And the not-so-good… While Nvidia was busy dropping the mic, Radeon RDNA 4 GPUs were barely touched on by AMD. Details were amiss in AMD’s presentation, and specs for the new products were hard to find. The good news is that we at least have confirmation that GPUs like the Radeon RX 9070 XT will have 16GB of VRAM and will be coming soon. Even though the company devoted zero air time to the RTX 9070 in its CES keynote, AMD has a lot of positives with AI and RDNA 4 that should help its GPUs perform well. FSR 4 is also a notable technology that will allow AMD to compete with Nvidia’s DLSS 4, although Nvidia does have a head start as far as AI tech in the gaming space. AMD AMD has stated in the past that it isn’t chasing the crown for fastest GPU this generation, instead focusing on the mid-to-entry-high-range GPUs that’ll result in more gamers choosing its products. In turn, this will mean there are more developers willing to optimize for their GPUs and their larger base of users. (AMD has previously done well with RDNA 3 GPUs, such as the Radeon RX 7800 XT, bringing some great price-performance to the table in the battle against Nvidia.) While the strategy is fine, AMD did seem a bit too hush-hush on its new products at CES 2025. Perhaps they wanted Nvidia to fully play their hand, like announcing their intent to launch the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, a product that competes directly in the price range and market that AMD is targeting. The RTX 5090, not so much — unless AMD pulls out a surprise like they did with the RDNA 3-based Radeon RX 7900 XTX a few years ago. Nvidia vs. AMD in 2025: The takeaway There’s no doubt that AMD will have some excellent GPUs with RDNA 4, but the optics of a high-profile event like CES 2025 are also important. Even Nvidia, with its massive revenue stemming from data centers and AI, still gave proper attention to its gaming products during their keynote. Something like this can cause an early mindshare shift with gamers, since we don’t have details aside from a few pictures and sparse information. This fails to build enthusiasm and only gives the nod to Nvidia to bulldoze this generation of graphics cards for enthusiasts. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry To be sure, apart from Nvidia-curated graphs, we don’t know the full details of the GeForce RTX 50 Series and its capabilities. But at least we have some rough ideas to get excited about, along with the all-important pricing that dictates what gamers will ultimately buy. We would’ve liked to see more info from AMD, even a slight mention in its presentation, to give us a sense of what to expect. Sadly, AMD really the dropped the ball. Only time will tell how much it affects Radeon’s prospects. Read...

If you’re buying a USB docking station, especially one with USB4, keep an eye out for an updated USB labeling scheme that will help you identify the USB technology being used. In 2019, the names used by the USB Implementor Forum’s engineering teams to describe the various speeds of USB got leaked, and the backlash (including our own) was harsh. Names like “USB 3.2 Gen 2” mean nothing to consumers — but neither do marketing-style terms, such as “SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps.” It’s the latter speed-only designation that became the default standard, where users cared less about numerical gobbledygook and more about just how fast a cable was. (Our reviews simply refer to the port by its shape, such as USB-A, and its speed, such as 5Gbps.) In 2022, the USB world settled upon an updated logo scheme that basically cut out everything but the speed of the device or cable. Thankfully, the USB-IF has taken the extra step and extended its logo scheme to the latest versions of the USB specification, including USB4. It also removes “USB4v2” from consumer branding. USB-IF If you’re buying a USB4 or USB4v2 docking station, you’ll simply see a “USB 80Gbps” or “USB 40Gbps” logo on the side of the box now. While it may be a little disconcerting to see a new logo like this, at least you’ll know exactly what you’re buying. This is a welcome move on several fronts. For one, USB-C ports typically go unlabeled on PCs, so you can’t be sure whether the USB-C port is an older 10Gbps port or a more modern USB4 or Thunderbolt port. (Thunderbolt 4 and USB4v2 are essentially identical, though Intel has its own certification process. Thunderbolt ports aren’t identified by speed, either.) USB-IF representatives told me that they’d heard a rumor that Dell would begin identifying its ports like the primary image above. The USB-IF is also applying common-sense logos to cables, too, informing users what its throughput and power transmission capabilities are. Finally, the updated USB logos will also apply to cables. Jeff Ravencraft, president of the USB-IF, said that was done to clearly communicate the only things consumers cared about: what data speeds the cable supported and how much power it could pass between two devices. Read...

The Tottenham boss has taken aim at the failure of English fans to stand up against relentless change in football. Read...

Magnetic Fluid Driver creates clean, high-resolution, low-vibration and low-distortion sound for authentic, balanced audio that’s true to the source. Read...

The folks at Zero Breeze don’t think air conditioning should just be an indoor phenomenon. Why shouldn’t we enjoy cool air when we’re out barbecuing on our backyard decks or even on while tent-camping far from an AC outlet? So, the company unveiled its Zero Breeze Mark 3 Portable Air Condition at CES 2025 just for such scenarios. Designed to combine portability and performance in one efficient unit, the Mark 3 can not only run on AC battery but it also comes with a battery—with a multi-battery option—or you can plug it into your vehicle’s 12-volt power outlet. Zero Breeze aims to provide a reliable cooling option for outdoors enthusiasts, workers in challenging environments, and anyone needing efficient climate control in tight spaces. The Mark 3 offers significant upgrades over the Zero Breeze Mark 2. The model features a compact, lightweight design that weighs less than 22 pounds, making the Mark 3 easy to transport and set up. The unit houses a micro twin-cylinder compressor capable of delivering 5,280 BTUs of cooling power, nearly double the performance of its predecessor. The Zero Breeze can run on batteries (multiples, stacked), AC power, or 12-volt power from a car battery.Zero Breeze The Mark 3 also offers improvements in energy efficiency. Using spot cooling technology, it directs airflow where it’s needed, reducing waste and maximizing battery life. A 1022Wh swappable battery can provide up to seven hours of cooling on a single charge and can recharge to 80 percent of its capacity in about two hours. For longer usage, owners can power the Mark 3 with additional batteries or external power sources. The unit includes seven cooling, from a powerful Rocket Mode for intense cooling to a quieter Sleep Mode for overnight use. Users can adjust the temperature between 61 degrees Fahrenheit and 82 F (16 – 28 C), making it versatile for a range of outdoor conditions. Designed for spaces up to 150 square feet, the Mark 3 is well-suited for small areas like tents, RVs, or workstations. Practical features like a dual-duct system improve efficiency and the Mark 3 also includes an automatic condensation drain system that helps to prevent leaks and spills, something that’s especially useful for those using the unit in vehicles or confined spaces. The Mark 3 is available for pre-order now at $1,299.99, with the first units expected to ship in late February. Zero Breeze hopes the device will be a practical choice for those seeking portable cooling, whether for recreational activities like camping or more demanding applications in work environments like construction sites or trucking. By improving efficiency and portability, Zero Breeze has positioned the Mark 3 as a device that can make compact cooling devices accessible to a larger audience. In those situations where a traditional fan would only redirect hot, humid air towards a person without providing any relief, the Mark 3 allows AC aficionados to enjoy chilled air wherever they go. Read...

Around Christmas time, Ventiva launched its Ionic Cooling Engine (ICE), the latest in what has been an unexpectedly disappointing industry of fanless cooling solutions for laptops. But with Ventiva, there’s a key difference: It has a customer. Ventiva, Intel, and Dell have collaborated on a proof-of-concept laptop that the company is showing off here at the CES show in Las Vegas. Inside is Ventiva’s ICE, which uses electrohydrodynamic airflow to strip about 25 watts’ worth of heat from a Core Ultra 200 (Lunar Lake) laptop — and essentially silently, to boot. To be fair, Dell hasn’t formally committed to shipping the unnamed laptop, though it casually placed Ventiva’s name on its concept laptop, something that you don’t often see. Intel even endorsed the technology in its CES materials. Carl Schlachte, Ventiva’s chief executive, describes the Ventiva technology this way: In a typical laptop, a heat pipe passively moves heat via conduction from the PC’s core logic out to near the external vents, where it radiates into the air. A fan or blower kicks in under load, sucking cool air from vents underneath the laptop. The fans then blow the warmed air outside the laptop. It’s an effective solution, but one that can be noisy and somewhat distracting if not well engineered. How Ventiva’s ICE technology works Ventiva’s ICE doesn’t use fans, rendering it virtually silent. Instead, the technology ionizes the air passing through. A closeup of the ICE and its charging wire.Mark Hachman / IDG Each ICE looks a bit like a PCI Express slot, laid horizontally, but open on both ends. Running down the middle of the ICE, horizontally, is a tiny, charged wire. The ICE applies a charge, grabbing electrons from air molecules that flow through the ICE and creating a dense collection of positively-charged ions that are repelled from the positively-charged wire. As they’re pushed away, the ions bump into other, neutrally charged air molecules, pushing the mass of air away and creating airflow. The amount of air movement (and thus heat dissipation) depends on both the size of the ICE as well as the current applied. In a display case, Schlachte showed off a family of different-sized ICEs, nothing more than a few inches. When asked, Schlachte said that the largest can move a maximum of about one cubic foot of air per minute (1 cfm), but that it was largely dependent upon the current applied. ICEs can be made in different sizes, though it’s the charge applied to the wire that seems to have the most effect.Mark Hachman / IDG It’s a different approach than companies like Frore or xMEMS have used. Those companies applied charge to what is essentially a vibrating membrane, using that as means to move air and dissipate heat. Form customizing laptops to working with Intel For now, Schlachte said that Ventiva is focused on stripping heat from premium, thin-and-light notebooks at $1,000 or above. Dell’s unnamed laptop, a “gorgeous design,” he said, was to his knowledge “the thinnest it’s ever done.” Ventiva’s ICE was under development for several years, but the company wasn’t aggressively marketing it as a product. “We went to LA,” Schlachte said. “We were out with the laptop guys first before we talked. We weren’t even trying to get a design win. We’re like, look, here’s what we’re doing, right? We’re thermal people. They’re thermal people. There is kind of a weird brotherhood, a weird, nerdy brotherhood. And then they picked up the phone, called Intel, and Intel called us.” If you look closely, you can see the small “ICE” labels where the air is pushed out of this Dell prototype. Also note the Ventiva reference at the very top.Mark Hachman / IDG Schlachte said that company engineers would just go into a local Best Buy, buy an off-the-shelf laptop, retrofit it, and then take it with them to executives at major laptop companies. “And eventually, they would ask me, how soon can I get one of these in my laptop, and I’d say, ‘Here you go.`” Intel, meanwhile, was on the hunt for an improved cooling solution. According to Schlachte, Intel was frustrated by an unsuccessful co-engineering effort with a competitor, and heard through its network of partners about Ventiva. Intel, for its part, said this week that it’s potentially considering Ventiva’s ICE cooling solution as part of its Evo program. Intel representatives didn’t reply to a request for comment by press time. This is how Ventiva could arrange the ICEs to create an (eventual) 40W cooling solution.Mark Hachman / IDG Dust and ozone: Ventiva’s critics say its tech has risks In just a few weeks, Ventiva’s ICE solution has attracted some scrutiny and some critics. For one, the ICE solution essentially is creating ozone (O3), which occurs naturally, and beneficially, in the atmosphere — the “ozone layer” — via a plasma field. Ozone can be mildly harmful when breathed in large enough quantities, however, potentially causing irritation to mucus membranes in the nose and mouth. When you think about how Ventiva’s ICEs emit ozone, and there can be several in a single laptop, and they could be constantly emitting ozone just inches from your lungs. Well, the worries don’t seem unrealistic. A Ventiva solution that could remove 40W of heat from a laptop used five ICE devices, according to a physical model Ventiva showed. Ventiva showed PCWorld a draft paper that addresses the issue via a third-party testing lab. Acceptable ozone concentrations vary (the EPA allows 0.080 parts per million, or ppm; OSHA permits 0.100; the FDA allows 0.050 ppm). According to Ventiva’s findings, the ozone emitted moves in all directions, but is concentrated in the direction of the exhaust. At that angle, at 900mm (35 inches or just under three feet) the ozone exposure would be 50 parts per billion, or 0.05 ppm, with 0.5W of charge placed on the wire, which is close to government limits. (Ventiva also says that since ozone is unstable, it will dissipate quickly at a further distance and won’t be present when the ICE is turned off.) To play it safe, Ventiva developed what is essentially a catalytic converter: applying manganese dioxide. The compound can be applied to heat sinks or their thermal fins, at the discretion of the laptop maker. According to the company’s third-party testing, it’s quite effective. Ventiva Schlachte said, however, that the ozone may be detectable by those with sharp noses. He said that some noses can detect ozone at 30 parts per billion. “So there is a chance; we never deny it,” he said. “We don’t shy away from it.” The other risk is one all laptop makers face: Dust or other airborne crud like cat dander. In this, Schlachte shrugs his shoulders. “So I guess the first thing I should say is, nobody has conquered dust, including us,” Schlachte said. “Anybody who tells you they’re immune, impervious, that kind of thing — it’s just not true.” Traditional blowers can get coated with dust, or clogged with hair, enough that they slow down or can stop working. Ventiva can’t do anything about intakes getting clogged with gunk, but he said that the ICE has a secret capability: “It’s a pretty good air sensor,” he said. Schlachte wouldn’t quite commit to saying that the ICE can act like an air quality sensor, detecting particles as they fly though the air, but almost. “The reason I’m being little cautious around on this is that there is some work being done around this, that, that’ll probably get announced in the future,” he said. But that particle information can be handed over to the laptop’s internal control logic, which can decide what it can do from there. Here, Ventiva’s playing it a bit cagey. Moving ahead Right now, Ventiva is working with a single-source supplier, though it may add a second soon. That all means that Ventiva’s impact will be modest, for now. It doesn’t have the capacity to go beyond one or two laptop models, Schlachte said. Still, it’s a step forward. Laptop makers and consumers alike value passive cooling, because it can be close to or totally silent. But they also want a cooling solution powerful enough that it can run their laptop at top speeds. Ventiva hopes to provide customers with the best of both worlds. Read...