30 Most Innovative Products of 2012
Jan 7, 2013 11:42 AM
Last year we started the tradition of rounding up 30 innovative products that we saw through the course of the year. We decided then that innovation could mean a lot of things—from years of R&D to a stroke of inspiration. We try to demonstrate the range of innovations, acknowledging both mechanical innovations and electronic ones. This year, we were struck by the influence of interactivity and the overlap between users electronic lives and their work.
Some of the innovations we noticed this year are classic examples of improving the core quality of audio or video experiences; striving for clear pictures, great color, and beautiful sound is still a noble quest and one that requires all the passion and imagination of engineers. But AV gear is no longer confined to solving the challenges of signal quality, fidelity, image resolution, and intelligibility. There is so much more to be done. So we also acknowledged the innovation that is helping to expand our role in the end-user experience, whether that is in a corporate office, a school, or a church. Our engineers are still inventing ways to capture better quality experiences, but they are also engineering to create new experiences.
Not all these innovations are equivalently important, and it’s impossible to include everything that deserved mention. But with homage and appreciation to all the bold engineering going on out there, here are 30 products that caught our editors’ imaginations this year.
THIS YEAR’S PICKS
AMX Modero X Series Touchpanels
Aurora Multimedia DXE-CAT-S2 HDMI Extender
Chief CMSI Ceiling-mount Interactive Accessory
Crestron UFO Waterproof Remote Control
Key Digital Compass Control System
Mackie DLM Series Loudspeakers
Middle Atlantic PowerCool System
Panasonic PT-RZ470 and PT-RZ370 Series
Premier Mounts FPS-300 LCD Sliders
PreSonus Universal Control 1.7 with Integrated Rational Acoustics’ Smaart Measurement Technology