Gesture control may be the wave of the future, but is it cut out for the present? Eyesight Technologies announced on Monday, December 31, that it will discontinue Singlecue, the company’s gesture-based controller designed to work with most entertainment setups including televisions and set-top boxes. The company will stop selling the products immediately and will stop supporting the device entirely a year from now.
According to an email Eyesight sent to its customers and obtained by Digital Trends, the company reached a crossroad in its plans for the future and has opted to leave Singlecue behind while it invests in the development of other products. The effort required to make Singlecue a viable commercial product was just too big of an undertaking, according to the startup.
“It is with a heavy heart we decided to discontinue Singlecue,” the company wrote. It stated that it will be ceasing all sales of Singlecue — both from its own store and from other direct representatives — starting December 31. Orders already placed for the device will still ship as planned, so recent buyers will still be able to set up the gesture controls in their home.
In addition to ending sales of the devices, Eyesight Technologies will also stop supporting Singlecue altogether a year from now. On December 31, 2019, the company will discontinue all support for the device and the mobile apps will disappear from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Warranties and warranty extensions will be honored going forward, but for all intents and purposes, the Singlecue is on its last leg with an expiration date ahead of it.
Eyesight Technologies first launched the Singlecue back in 2014 with the idea of it being a sort of Xbox Kinect-style device for your entire entertainment system. The company dropped a second-generation version of the product in 2017 with new controls and features that were supposed to give users even more control using just their hands. The device was met with pretty mediocre reviews, offering a unique way to interact with a lot of home entertainment devices but ultimately failed to be a reliable replacement for the standard remote.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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