Razer Adaro Headphones & Nabu Smart Band - CES 2014
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,161 words · ~5 min read
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Linus Tech tips coverage of CES 2014 is brought to you by nc.com your source for
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great technology selection and service along with Corsair memory and Western
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Digital it's part one of our razor Suite coverage this is the general overview of
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the new stuff that they're showing off so there's of course their line of
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headphones and in ears so we have the creatively named in ears these ones
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actually go up your butt no no I'm just kidding they go in your ears if you put
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them up your butt not only will they not sound very good but they will be
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seriously not green anymore which is a real problem so these are aimed more for
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um not necessarily just Gamers but also music enthusiasts and that's where
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you'll get into the naming of some of these other products as well so they're
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going to have a DJ model that's not here so obviously that's not just aimed at
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Gamers unless you all happen to Moonlight as a DJ as well so the idea
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behind those is they're extremely comfortable they isolate noise so
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obviously there's some overlap between the needs of Gamers and the needs of DJs
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so it's a bit of a natural move for them but unfortunately we can't show you that
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right now but what we do have are the adaro stereos so these are a lightweight
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um twos speaker system based on the name once again very very creative razor
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thank you very much for that as always they're lightweight beautiful robust
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feeling and these guys are just masters of industrial design in spite of the
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fact that the headband is a little bit on the thin side for me the fact that it
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has nice Supple cushioning and the fact that they're so lightweight means that
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they're not uncomfortable next up we've got the Bluetooth which creatively
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named spove because it has Bluetooth so that that that is once again uh them
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just really going out on a limb trying to confuse their customers making it as
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difficult as possible to find exactly the right these are very similar
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looking to the adaro stereo but the key difference here is they are of course
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Bluetooth controlled and wireless so they feature an onboard battery once
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again beautiful industrial design and considering the fact that they're battery powered they're really not that
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much heavier than the regular stereo skew which is impressive that's one of
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the problems that I've personally had with Bluetooth headphones in the past uh
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most notably the parrot zeks which are incredibly cool and a great piece of
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technology but unfortunately are extremely heavy next up we've got
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something that I have been asked to say this okay so I have to be very clear it
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is not a smart watch it is not a fitness band it is a smart band and I promise to
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say that as unironically as possible but I don't think I got away with it anyway
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this is the nabo and it's a fairly uniquely positioned product hence the
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reason that they're saying it's not a smart watch and it's not a fitness band
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what it is is it is a bit of a communication device it could be a
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gaming device in the future you could play you could play tag with it you
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could use it to integrate with something like Facebook for example share contact
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information with people when you meet them because it does have an accelerometer as we might expect from
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something that's expected to act as you know a sleep monitor a fitness tracker
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and all those usual things you might expect from a fitness band but it's a
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little bit smarter than your typical fitness band hence the smart in the name
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and I'm not being ironic this time in that it has a couple of displays that
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allow you to see notifications much like you would with a smartwatch and of
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course you can read the time on it as well but again you know we don't want to get stuck in this this Smartwatch
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functionality thing so it has one on the top and the idea behind it is whether
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it's for gaming and you're trying to slip away from the table because you
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just got a message on comms or an email or a text or whatever else it's about
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subtlety so you get one notification on the top which might be in the form of a
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little envelope for an email for example then you have an additional screen on
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the bottom so you'd flip your wrist around and you'd be able to read your
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text get your message and then finish your food quickly and get away to your
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gaming PC where it's time to join a League of Legends match or whatever else
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the case may be so it's going to come in two different sizes Each of which
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includes a spacer so the idea is that even though this very obviously
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engineering sample one that I'm wearing uh which is you know hideous and
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obviously too big for me so even though this one's too big don't worry guys
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there will be different sizes and it's not expected to be a one- siiz fit all
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now the reason again that it's not being positioned as a smartwatch is that not
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everyone wants a smartwatch some people want a watch as a fashion accessory and
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this is meant to coexist with a watch as opposed to replace it even though once
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again it has the functionality of being able to tell time if you so desired now
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we don't have an MSRP for it yet but we're expecting a $49.99 developer kit
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to be available at sometime in the near future here so I think especially at
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that price point it's going to be worthwhile for folks to get their hands on it and why would they need a
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developer kit you might ask well because there's already a rudimentary app that
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allows you to see things like your uh you can see the device you can see your
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notifications your Fitness and all that stuff but ah yes an app marketplace
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where there's Twitter and Facebook as some suggested apps but Razer is leaving
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things very open to other folks to develop new functionality for their
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Smart Band so thank you very much for checking out this video in razor Suite
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remember our trip to the show was powered this year by nc.com your source
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for technology selection and Service as well as Corsair memory and Western
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