Rebecca Day

Some customer confusion greeted Verizon’s announcement it's automatically enrolling some in the free version of its Call Filter service that it introduced in March. Upgrades will start to become available on select Android devices immediately, Verizon said; all eligible customers can actively enroll in the free version anytime.

Dish’s OnTech smart home service expanded into 20 markets, bringing to 31 the total number of metro areas offering the device and installation service that launched in June (see 1906170060), General Manager Jeremy McCarty told us Tuesday. New markets are Baltimore; Beaumont, Texas; Charlotte; Chicago; Cleveland; Corpus Christi; Detroit; Jacksonville; Lansing, Michigan; Las Vegas; Macon, Georgia; Miami; Minneapolis; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; Portland, Oregon; Richmond; San Diego; Tucson and Palm Beach, Florida.

The premium for 5G in smartphones is “dramatically exceeding expectations,” with a price premium as much as 29 times higher than consumers expect, said IHS Markit Monday. Nine of 10 survey respondents said they expect to pay more for 5G than 4G LTE phones, but three-quarters said they expect to pay a 10-25 percent upcharge for 5G, a range of $32-$80 based on the average selling price of a smartphone, blogged analyst Joshua Builta.

Big U.S. video-content industry players are increasingly focusing on high quality, an executive at a Chinese-based TV maker told us. Aaron Dew, TCL director-product development, cited growing HDR content from Hollywood studios and providers Amazon, Netflix and Vudu, along with compatible video sources including Apple TV and Xbox One. In North America, his company is supporting “all mainstream HDR formats,” he said. With HDR10 Plus “just starting to emerge,” TCL is keeping a “close eye on it,” he said.

More than 600 million smartphones and other devices with contact-based wireless charging shipped worldwide last year, but nearly 70 percent of consumers don’t own contact charging pads, wireless charging company Wi-Charge and Zogby Analytics reported Tuesday. Half of U.S. consumers who own Qi wireless chargers have concerns about “sub-par reliability, speed and the need to leave their phone on the pad." A third said their mobile devices die “multiple times every week,” even when fully charged overnight. A quarter would pay a premium for devices that could charge themselves without user intervention through long-range wireless charging, and 25 percent with smart home devices would spend 10 percent more for a smart home device with long-range wireless power if that meant making the device more mobile and easier to maintain. Wi-Charge's Chief Marketing Officer Yuval Boger told us last week that wireless charging is “more topical than ever” because of the extra burden 5G technology is expected to put on smartphone batteries.

TVs that users can power on by voice can use many times more energy while resting, reported the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sony, Vizio and Westinghouse TVs that can be awakened and controlled via voice commands had standby power levels above 20 watts in tests with smart speakers, NRDC found. TVs from LG, Samsung and TCL that users could control, not wake, via voice had standby levels under 1 watt. The higher-energy-using sets that had updates after the fall tests used less power in standby, the green advocate found. LG Electronics Senior Vice President John Taylor emailed us: “NRDC and LG Electronics are both looking out for energy-conscious consumers.” He said that underscores NRDC’s tests showed “very low standby power levels -- approximately 1 Watt.” The combined feature of waking and controlling a TV by voice is in early stages, but NRDC expects it to become more prevalent in 2019 models due on the market this half. “If this trend continues and manufacturers fail to optimize their televisions for low standby power levels when linked to smart speakers, we could see large increases in national energy consumption,” it said. The extra electricity use would add $1.3 billion-$2.5 billion to U.S. household electric bills, it said. The group cited Amazon’s Fire TV dongle as a low-standby power engineering solution that can act as a network proxy waking the TV from low-power sleep via HDMI-CEC. Acknowledging increased cost that would mean for TV makers, NRDC hopes manufacturers add the capability on a chip “for little cost in the system as smart speaker use gains market penetration.” Amazon provides low-power reference designs manufacturers can leverage to develop Alexa-enabled products with low standby power, and other voice assistant developers “may provide low-power reference designs as well,” said NRDC: “The ball is in the court of the TV manufacturers.” Sony and Vizio didn’t comment. A Westinghouse spokesperson emailed that the WA50UFA1001, which used the Amazon Fire operating system, was an "old model developed in 2016/17 that is no longer being produced." Westinghouse's newer products have "improved dramatically" on power consumption in standby mode from when the Fire TV was developed, she said. Also Monday, a cable study showed that industry making progress on green goals (see 1908120051). Tuesday, another report showed set-top box progress on similar aspirations (see 1908130030).

Geopolitical and macroeconomic factors slammed ON Semiconductor’s Q2 revenue, said Chief Financial Officer Bernard Gutmann on a Monday earnings call. A “sharper-than-expected” broad-based inventory correction, largely in the automotive market, drove revenue lower in the quarter, he said.

Summit Wireless is positioning its technology as a mainstream immersive sound option for consumers, available for as little as $1 as an embedded chip in smart TVs. Company engineers are taking IP from its chips, “enhancing it, and making it a licensable version” that can be designed into smartphones and smart TVs, “taking it to the broad market vs. the premium or performance market,” said CEO Brett Moyer Thursday. The Wireless Speaker and Audio technology is suited to gaming and esports, due to its 5 millisecond latency rate, he told the company's Thursday webcast. WiSA's latency is lower than Bluetooth, he noted. Moyer compared the WiSA Association to HDMI.org and Bluetooth Special Interest Group, with a charter to “make sure that all manufacturers know what to build so there’s interoperability” -- that a WiSA product from Harman will work with a WiSA-compatible LG product, for instance. The WiSA membership agreement has design interoperability requirements and marketing logo requirements so consumers "know what they are buying,” the CEO said.

Silicon Labs second quarter revenue rose 10 percent to $206.7 million despite “macro headwinds” affecting the semiconductor industry, while IoT grew to 60 percent of the revenue mix, management said on a Wednesday earnings call. Infrastructure revenue was $44 million, 21 percent of Q2 revenue, Chief Financial Officer John Hollister said, down 4 percent sequentially, with China trade issues “negatively impacting” timing product sales. Responding to a question on Silicon Labs’ relationship with Huawei and whether it will be able to restart shipments to the Chinese electronics manufacturer, Hollister called it a “complex issue” with different products having different types of export control designations. Silicon Labs has been working with the Semiconductor Industry Association and external counsel “to understand the landscape,” and it resumed some shipments, “where possible, with Huawei,” CEO Tyson Tuttle said. Hollister viewed the Q3 guidance it gave Wednesday -- $213 million-$223 million with a decline in infrastructure -- as reflecting “more of a normalized level of business with Huawei.” The China ecosystem remains important to the company, Hollister said, and it continues to “gain traction out of the market with Xiaomi and others.” IoT ecosystems are gaining strong traction with Alarm.com, Amazon, Comcast, Google Home, Signify, Samsung SmartThings, Tuya, Xiaomi and others, he said.

Amid sluggish category sales hampered by steep prices, longer ownership cycles and 4G market saturation, smartphones were discounted during sales events last week. Promotions extended beyond the Amazon Prime 48-hour sales event when smartphones led electronics with 20 percent discounts, per Adobe Analytics. T-Mobile touted a Friday promotion for a free phone over 2 years with service. Customers could get four new phones and four lines for $40 monthly per line. Models included are the Samsung Galaxy A10e and LG Q7+ and LG K30. AT&T is giving away an iPhone 8 to customers over 30 months with an unlimited plan. There's also a buy one, get one free promo for current-generation iPhones. Sprint is hoping to steal customers from the other major carriers, offering new customers up to $650 for switching costs.