iLounge

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Friday, January 13, 2012
News Category: iPod Accessories, CES iLounge Pavilion, CES, iPad Accessories, iPhone Accessories

One of the Apple accessory areas of particular interest to iLounge’s editors are products for kids—speakers, cases, and headphones if they’ve been designed to be safe for little ears. Here are a few of the more noteworthy items we saw at this year’s CES, which is just now winding down in Las Vegas.

Case-Mate: Showed off a huge collection of kids’ cases, including many made from multi-layered rubber with different cool artwork—ice cream, animals, and the like. Some of the cases are abstract versions of animals, others are obviously so. Case-Mate also showed Marvel/Disney-licensed hard shells that had great iconic art from the comic company’s biggest-named series.

Electric Friends: This division of Noetic showed four different animal speaker systems targeted at a sub-$60 price point, and they were seriously cute—like Chew Chew the Dog, each has its own name and backstory, with two big speaker grilles protecting eye-shaped audio drivers. The price is right, the design is right, and the sound is respectable.

More images and details are below.

Etymotic: Demonstrated inexpensive Ety-Kids series in-ear headphones for kids, with volume limitation hardwired into the cables; their maximum volume is roughly 50% of the volume of typical earphones. One version is Ety-Kids 5, without a remote, and the other is Ety-Kids 3, with a three-button Apple remote and microphone built in. The sound signature is similar to Etymotic’s earlier low-end earphones, just a lot quieter at peak.

Griffin: Showed the soft kids’ iPod/iPhone carrying case Woogie 2, previously announced, along with an iOS app that gives the clear center of the stuffed animal-like toy a pair of eyes that you can poke and change.

PDP Mobile: In addition to a neat comic book-inspired iPad 2 case featuring the cover artwork from a Spider-Man/Venom issue—one in a series, the company says, PDP showed some great Disney licensed cases, including one with Mickey Mouse ears sticking out of the iPhone’s top. It’s about time.

Speakal: So many companies share in the Hello Kitty license that it’s hard to imagine a world with only one type of Kitty accessory. Speakal’s new f3 division showed Hello Kitty speakers, a natural evolution from its prior iPig and other animal-themed plastic audio systems.