Near Field Audio Technology - Ultimate Convenience?

[admin]

There are a few products on the market sporting Near Field Audio technology - one from Voxx (formally AudioVox) and one from ifrogz (disappointingly not shaped at all like a frog). These two products basically look and operate exactly the same. They are platforms upon which you set your smartphone or portable media player (no wires needed). When you do, the box "magically" (this is their word, not ours) picks up the sound from the phone or player and amplifies it through its internal speakers. The devices are battery powered though they can be connected to the wall, are portable, and work with most phones or players. A truly manufacturer agnostic wireless playback dock? Now that's what we call interesting.

Discuss "Near Field Audio Technology Overview" here. Read the Near Field Audio Technology Overview.

Is this something you can see yourself using?

 

[haraldo]

Interesting technology, but I wonder about the reasoning behind this

For this to work, phone must be on top of the box, so you may just as well use a cable from the headphone jack
Mighty strange thing this is

 

[fmw]

Also it seems strange to me that someone would carry this thing around with them. No point in using it at home. Most of us can plug the phone into the AV receiver. The only time I listen to music on the smart phone is when I'm bike riding and earbuds are de rigeur for that. I don't see any application for this for me personally.

 

[jcunwired]

I'm having a very hard time coming up with a valid use case. While I've embraced NFC heavily, I think I'll stick with bluetooth, the other near field audio technology

 

[corey]

I started out reading this thinking 'Tom's an iGuy and doesn't know about NFC'. I realized I was wrong & restarted it, but still don't get it. Aside from the fact that I usually play music from an MP3 player to save my phone battery, it looks like this device offers you the choice to send it a signal either from your phone's headphone jack or use NFA from your phone's speaker. Am I wrong in assuming that the headphone out would have much better fidelity?

Any product that uses "magically" on their home page and isn't sold at Diagon Alley is somewhat suspect.

 

[S Oswald]

Hi,
New here and apparently a little late to the Near Field Induction Audio idea. I remember seeing the Soundflow Alarm Clock several years ago but thought my phone doesn't support wireless charging so I've got to plug it in anyway so why spend the extra for the mag induction.
Anyway, I was walking into my den listening to a superb song and wanted to quickly put it on my stereo for better sound. Problem is I had to hunt for the 3.5mm cable to connect into the aux input... sounds easy but then I remembered the Soundflow device and thought a dock with that capability would be nice, just breeze in to the den, drop the phone on the dock and instantly music is issuing from the speakers.
However, a dock with that capability does not exist. From what I've seen in the marketplace, if a device has near field induction, it has speakers and no line out. Bummer. Anyone still following this thread that might have seen or know of a product that fits my desire? Just curious.