Some of the most impressive things at CES come from small, young companies, and Yantouch is quite possibly the iLounge Pavilion’s best-kept secret—until now. In addition to showing what it’s calling the 3D Dock for iPhone ($80), a charging station and Black Diamond application that turns your iPhone into an ever-shifting colored lamp that turns specific colors to identify your phone callers, the Taiwanese company’s Jelly Series of lamps absolutely blew us away.
We liked the company’s $100 JellyFish Black, a table lamp that has a small touch panel on the front that enables you to control its color either on a speed- and brightness-controlled loop of 16 million tones, or set to be one color. It’s easy to imagine putting this next to a bed for mood lighting—intense mood lighting.
But we loved JellyWash+ ($150), a considerably more sophisticated second-generation version with gesture controls.
Hold your hand over one of its proximity sensors to switch between one-color and 16-million-color mode. Others change speed, saturation, and brightness. The color effect is intense and beautiful, with effects that emulate the glow of the sun—complete with a wake-up feature that increases the sound of birds chirping to naturally open your eyes and ears. Dripping water and cricket effects help you meditate or go to sleep. And another gesture activates an alarm, complete with a glowing, temporary analog-style clock face.
The 3D Dock is neat. JellyFish Black is cool. But JellyWash+ is just awesome. The more you learn how to control it and use its features, the better it gets. Yantouch deserves global success for a product this cool, and we cannot wait to see how it pulls off the planned iOS-ready versions. Yantouch’s booth (3738) can be found in the iLounge Pavilion at CES through Sunday, January 9, 2011.
Updated: Here’s a video of JellyWash+ in action. It doesn’t do justice to the real unit, with its chrome-finished back and beautiful LED ring of lighting, but it’s a start.