IFA 2019 showcases smartwatches and Amazon’s new TV and streaming gadgets

The launch of the revamped Samsung Galaxy Fold stole the show at IFA 2019 in Berlin. But some other great new items were unveiled as well.

IFA is Europe’s largest consumer tech show, and unlike CES in Las Vegas, it’s open to the general public. Many intriguing products were announced at the event, but unfortunately, not all of the items make it to the U.S.

Lucky for us, we will get a chance to buy new smartwatches, an amazing portable speaker and a super product lineup from Amazon.

Puma launches first smartwatch

Smartwatches made a splash at IFA, introducing a new player to the market: Puma. The sports brand company joined with Fossil Group to produce a new smartwatch powered by Wear OS and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset.

The watch will include a 1.19-inch round AMOLED display, and since it’s powered by Wear OS, you’ll get heart rate monitoring, fitness tracking and Google Assistant integration. Obviously, this watch is aimed squarely at the fitness set, so Puma designed it to be as lightweight as possible.

Not to be left out, Garmin teamed up with Marvel to produce the Marvel Legacy Heros GPS smartwatch. You can get the special edition 40mm Captain Marvel watch or the 45mm Captain America watch that has a 1940s feel.

These watches come with features already found on Garmin’s Vívoactive 4/4S GPS watches. That includes health monitoring, sleep tracking, animated workout instructions, phone notifications and music playback from Spotify and Amazon Music.

A portable sound of music

Sonos’ first portable speaker, the Move, was officially launched at IFA. The battery-powered speaker can connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network or stream over Bluetooth when you’re on the move. See what we did there?

The Move is also voice-enabled like other Sonos devices. You get to pick either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, as both are built into the speaker. Note that the voice-enabled feature only works on Wi-Fi mode.

Amazon has a line of firsts

Amazon had a lot to show off at IFA, but only three of the products will be available in the U.S. But these are easily the picks of the litter.

Anker Nebula Fire TV Edition sound bar

This is Amazon’s first sound bar with built-in Fire TV. All you have to do is connect it to a TV and you can start streaming Fire TV apps. It’s more expensive than Roku’s new sound bar, but you can use it with Amazon’s multiroom system and it can handle Dolby Vision HDR.

Of course, it’s Alexa-enabled but it’s very limited. To give voice commands you have to speak into the voice remote.

Next-generation Fire TV Cube

This is an update to the of the original Fire TV Cube that combines an Amazon Echo Dot, a Fire TV Stick 4K and a universal remote. Amazon says the next-gen’s processing speed is twice as powerful than the one found on the original.

With faster processing speed, your Alexa-enabled commands kick in faster. The next-generation device also has Dolby Vision and HDR10+ compatibility.

Toshiba 65-inch Fire TV Edition television

Right now, you can get Toshiba’s Dolby Vision HDR-capable Fire TVs in 55-inch, 50-inch and 43-inch versions. Now, you can go even bigger at 65-inches. Currently, the Toshiba’s main rival is TCL’s Roku TV.

But honestly, the Toshiba is a bit of a let-down after seeing Grundig’s OLED TV with Fire TV. OLED TVs have some of the best picture quality due to their deeper black and richer color spectrum.

Another plus: This is the first Fire TV Edition with built-in microphones — so you can control it with Alexa without having to speak into a voice remote. Alas, the TV is only available in Germany.

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