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Hands on: Wireless HDMI Alarm Clock Perfect for Bedside, Dorm Room G-Link Obsess: sleek alarm clock, iOS dock, iDevice station, wireless 1080p HDMI streamer with WHDI technology — perfect for grads & dads |
Way back at CEDIA 2012, one of my favorite sightings had nothing to do with home automation, even though it was at the Control4 home automation booth. It was the G-Link Obsess – the best alarm clock on the planet and a perfect gift for dads and high-school grads. What makes Obsess so interesting is its built-in wireless HD technology from Amimon, the company that brought us the Wireless Home Digital Interface spec. WHDI utilizes the 5-GHz band to deliver up to 1080p video (theoretically) over 100 feet without line of sight. Simply plug in the alarm clock, plug the wireless receiver into an HDMI port on your television, place your iOS device in the 30-pin dock, and you’ve got full-resolution video on your big-screen TV. Obsess also has two USB and one HDMI (CEC compatible) port, so it can stream content from virtually any mobile device or HDMI-connected component such as a Blu-ray player. An audio input streams music from your MP3 player. The range of WHDI is theoretically 100 feet without line-of-sight, but you won’t be getting full resolution or optimal performance at such distances. It doesn’t matter with this product, as you’ll most likely be using it in the same room as your TV. Obsess is perfect for spaces where a TV is wall-mounted with scant room for components – a bedroom or a dorm room, for example. Put the dock on your night stand and stash the components on a shelf below. You will still need to find room by the TV for the HDMI-connected wireless receiver, but it is small enough and thin enough to hide behind the display in most cases. Using ObsessObsess comes from the G-Link division of Communications Integrators Inc. (cii), which supplies connectivity devices like Obsess for the hospitality industry. Can you imagine having one of these things by your bed in a hotel room? For starters, it beats the heck out of most hotel alarm clocks, with its big bright display and easy-to-program alarm. I’m always baffled at how challenging it is to program a hotel clock, but Obsess has just a handful of buttons that I figured out in about 10 seconds. Even while an iOS device is docked, you can still hit the snooze button in front of it. It would be nice if the Obsess alarm clock reproduced itself on your docked device but naturally you can use the clock app of your choice. Setting up Obsess is as plug-and-play as G-Link promises. The transmitter and receiver are already paired, so once they’re powered up, they find each other in a matter of seconds. I tried Obsess first with an iPad docked into the station. Streaming Hulu was effortless, with video quality limited only by my WiFi network. The real test of video quality, however, came when I plugged a Blu-ray player into the HDMI port on the alarm clock. At 12 feet line-of-sight, the video on my 65-inch Mitsubishi DLP looked about the same as it would with a hardwired connection. Then I took the ensemble around the corner into the kitchen about 20 feet, obscuring the line of sight. No problem. A few more feet away and around another corner, however, I found the video resolution start to diminish, and we’d get a line of static every 15 minutes or so lasting about one second. And through all of this, you can charge one iOS device via the dock and two more devices using Obsess’s built-in USB ports. Obsess PricingObsess retails for $599. Other WHDI-enabled video distribution products on the market are roughly half the price – for example Belkin’s F7D4516 ScreenCast AV4 with four HDMI inputs for $250, and Startech’s ST121WHD HDMI extender for $330. The competing WiHD (Wireless HD) 60-GHz protocol from Sibeam likewise has wireless video products in the $200 to $400 range. So why spend almost $600 for the G-Link Obsess when it is twice as much as the other wireless HD products in the market? First, those others make terrible gifts – they’re just black boxes. Out of the box, Obsess is a useful and nicely designed alarm clock with multiple functions and support for streaming and device charging. Second, Obsess is a compact all-in-one machine for tight spaces such as the bedroom, kitchen or dorm room. My husband’s “office” is the kitchen island and I wouldn’t mind if the alarm clock sat there full-time. Dock an iPad for following recipes, or stream video to the big screen while working at the counter. Finally, this is one of those products that you might pack in a suitcase if you’re hitting the road. Place it on your hotel night stand and it will feel just like home. Consumers can buy Obsess from via G-Link directly or through any authorized Control4 dealer. And a Few ShortcomingsStrangely enough, Obsess does not have auxiliary outlets for power, which would be very useful for night-stand installations. A power outlet will be available on G-Link’s forthcoming Crave device, which is the hardwired equivalent of Obsess without the alarm clock. The product will be shipping soon for $399. Also, the particular unit will become less relevant over time as the 30-pin iOS connector is phased out but presumably the product will change with the times. Finally, since G-Link is so tied in with Control4, why not add a ZigBee radio or some other mechanism to communicate with a complete home automation system? The alarm could trigger lights to ramp up at a specified rate, or the temperature could be set from the night stand. |
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