World famous logo of CES
Early January is always the traditional CES in Las Vegas. Most brands are available with a booth or a suite to receive customers and display products.
UNIDEN
Watching the short video we made from CES you will see that there is no video shot from a Uniden booth. Since several years Uniden is not present with a booth at CES. Often they do have a suite in one of the hotels. There they talk to customers and show new products. But this year Uniden USA is absent. We met a friendly Uniden sales man on the show talking to distributors, but that was all. One of the USA distributors showed some Uniden products at CES, so they were not totally absent for the public.
COBRA BOOTH
Each year COBRA is present with a booth to show the existing and new products. This year Cobra moved from Central hall to a smaller booth in the North hall.
Last year the shares of Cobra were purchased by an investing company.
The market is waiting for the moves they will make. Until now it seems ‘less expenses’ as there were no exiting new products introduced at CES this year.
CB – TWO MODELS SHOWN
Cobra LX BT, 40 Channel AM, great radio but not new
The first CB shown was the CB29LXBT. This radio looks the same as the European Cobra 29LXEU. But this is the American BT version. BT stands for Bluetooth. A great radio, very popular by USA truckers, but not a new item.
The BT option makes it possible to make and receive hands free cellular calls through the CB radio.
Cobra C75WXST, 40 CH AM, remote CB
The C75WXST is a remote CB. In Europe we supply a similar model from Cobra the Cobra 75STEU. It is a great concept, but not very popular in the truck market.
Other Cobra CB Models for USA market like C19DXIV, C18WXSTII,
C25 models, several C29 Models and HH portable models are still available but not shown at CES.
COBRA MARINE
At CES Cobra showed two mobile and two portable models for marine applications. The total range is four mobiles and four portable models. The models shown are for the USA market only and not for the European market. Here we use different channels and different functions.
Mobile Marine Transceivers
Portable Marine Transceivers
CONSUMER PRODUCTS –DSP9200BT
Cobra DSP9200BT
For DSP9200BT Cobra received a 2016 CES innovation award. Cobra tells us:
“The DSP 9200 BT is the most advanced system in its class and the company’s first digital detector, improving on detector range and performance. It embeds advanced technology for precise notifications through Digital Signal Processing (DSP), which identifies alerts from unwanted noise for greater reliability and frequency. The unit scored highly across all judging criteria, and it joins a small percentage of other products that are given this honor each year. Products are judged based upon several criteria including, but not limited to: engineering qualities, aesthetic and design qualities, intended use or function and user value, unique or novel features consumers would find attractive and how it directly compares to other products in the marketplace.
The DSP 9200 BT is the first detection system developed by the company that leverages the advanced precision and power of DSP technology, and we couldn’t be more pleased to be recognized by the most prominent awards committee in the CE industry for our constant improvements to our new and existing product lines.”
CONSUMER ITEMS
Cobra clearly choose to show products for the larger markets like dash cams, radar detectors, power inverters etc. The radar detectors are totally illegal in most European countries. In The Netherlands, where Avera-Distributing is based, a dealer will be fined Euro 500 for each radar detector the Dutch FCC finds in the warehouse. So no need to explain that there is no trade for radar detectors in European countries that have similar regulations.
Cobra inverters for truckers
In CES Part 2 more news from this show.