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ISE 2026: Maxhub unveils partnerships, products to enrich unified collaboration | Computer Weekly

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ISE 2026: Maxhub unveils partnerships, products to enrich unified collaboration | Computer Weekly


Maxhub has unveiled a series of products focusing on sustainability and ecosystem integration to position its portfolio not as merely screens, but as true unified collaboration systems. In this way, it is seeking to raise the bar in an enterprise media sector where firms are increasingly looking to deploy systems that offer broadcast-quality production capabilities but without prohibitive costs and complexity.

In addition to new products spanning cameras, video bars, collaboration tools, consoles and digital signage, the provider of integrated commercial displays and unified communications announced further collaborations with Microsoft and NDI to create enhanced multimedia experiences in existing and potentially new audiovisual (AV) use cases through IP.

Maxhub is in the midst of a European expansion strategy that started when it established an office in the Netherlands in 2022 and a product warehouse at the beginning of 2023. In the same year, it defined its channel strategy, and a year later, it embarked on its first partnership with Microsoft on a global level. In 2024, the company introduced a collaboration meeting board to the European market, and in 2025, it launched devices compatible with Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR).

Deployment options include traditional setups using Windows Collaboration Board AIO and Windows Bar AIO. Other configurations include an Express Instal based on an XBar V50 kit and Signature Room and Coordinated Meeting spaces. The latter are based on devices from the company’s Xcore Kit Pro+ range and an MTR Collaboration Board.

Explaining the company’s European setup to Computer Weekly at ISE 2026, Maxhub Europe director Kevin Wang noted that it was important for the company to improve its regional customer support and user experience.

“That’s why we … have four RMA [return material authorisation] centres in different countries – the UK, Slovakia, Italy and France. We now have local teams in around 12 countries. In those countries, we are able to provide local support from sales, pre-sales, as well as other services to the channels and end users. We also have dedicated service centres in the UK, Italy, France and Slovakia.”

The primary focus of the launch portfolio is the Videobar XBar Series, an all-in-one collaboration solution for Microsoft Teams Rooms. The new XBar W70 Kit is claimed to be the first and only Windows-based Teams Rooms video bar with a 200-megapixel quad-sight lens and a 16 MEMS microphone array. It combines four cameras and a Windows-powered system in a single device. It supports three-in-one installation options to make it suitable for meeting rooms of different sizes.

Assessing how the product will be deployed, Wang said a key aim was to simplify the complexity of older product solutions, hence the adoption and preference for an open platform ecosystem. “[Technologically], Videobar X series is a complicated solution. But for the end users, it’s quite easy to use”

Another part of the evolution of the company and its product line is a move away from traditional HDMI cable-based technology to more efficient infrastructures. Specifically, that is adopting technology that is compatible with the NDI Display standard and part of a local area network (LAN) to boost scalability and maintenance in enterprise environments. 

At ISE, Maxhub also highlighted the Digital Signage CMB Series, the world’s first NDI-certified smart display. The CMB Series is purpose-built for business and optimised for MTRs, which, when activated, the display illuminates. Once a meeting concludes, it subsequently deactivates.

Wang outlined the clear benefits of avoiding the “mess” of traditional cabling. “When you step into a meeting room and try to share content on a big screen, probably the first step is to find an HDMI cable or an adapter for the HDMI cable. So it’s a mess at that time, because you just have minutes to join the meeting, and maybe one of your key customers is waiting in the lobby of the video conference. You cannot waste time. The [aim] is to try to solve this problem. We would like to cooperate with leading providers in our industry to build an open ecosystem to bring this kind of high-efficiency solution to end users. With NDI, you don’t need the cable, you just click to connect to the network.”

In addition to being more cost-effective, Wang said this new approach also lends itself to a more secure, managed collaborative environment. He remarked that the partnership with Microsoft made network offerings intrinsically more secure.

Also boosting management is the Pivot+, a web-based platform designed to make device and system management simpler, more efficient and “safer”. Pivot+ provides centralised control of Maxhub devices across up to eight organisational levels. It supports zero-touch deployment, AI-powered alerts and intelligent event detection to ensure optimal performance and minimise downtime.

The zero-touch deployment capabilities allow devices to be automatically grouped post-enrolment, with central management also allowing remote batch control. In addition to multi-device screen control, the system offers multiple ways to update firmware and anomaly incident features encompassing detection, alerts and resolution.

One of the key stated goals of Maxhub is “unlocking the full potential” of Microsoft Teams in any workspace. To this end, Maxhub is additionally partnering with Microsoft to launch The Co-Create 100 coalition to provide 100 fully equipped MTRs to selected users. The aim is to offer measurable productivity or operational improvements that enterprises expect from modern Teams-enabled meeting environments. The scheme will also see Maxhub collaborate with global companies to share success stories and demonstrate how MTR enhances efficiency and creates competitive advantages.

Wang explained some of the benefits of this: “[Even] nowadays, many people don’t know the latest technology in our industry. With this Co-Create 100 programme, we would like to promote our product or tell a lot of people that they can have the opportunity to get some devices or upgrade their facilities. So with that opportunity, they will know how to improve their internal communications and collaboration efficiency.”

The launches at ISE included a touch console for Surface Hub and XBoard, the Maxhub Universal Console. Maxhub’s European business development manager, Mikkel Frederiksen, said: “The Universal Console delivers three things: connect, control and convenience.”

Maxhub also unveiled the XBoard 92 device, which is said to be the first 21:9 collaboration board to achieve MTR certification.



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Some of Our Favorite Valentine’s Day Gifts Are on Sale

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Some of Our Favorite Valentine’s Day Gifts Are on Sale


Love is in the air, and the WIRED Reviews team has been hard at work finding all sorts of Valentine’s Day deals. From sexy gifts for lovers to date night boxes to sex toys, we’ve got plenty of hand-tested recommendations, and many of them are on sale right now. If you’re still shopping for a gift, you can get yourself or your lover(s) something we recommend at a discount. Just keep in mind that you’ll want to shop sooner than later if you need the items to arrive before February 14.

Be sure to check out our related buying guides, including the Best Valentine’s Day Gifts and the Best Chocolate Delivery Boxes.

The Adventure Challenge Couples Edition for $38 ($7 off)

The Adventure Challenge

Couples Edition

This is one of our favorite date night boxes, and it also makes an excellent Valentine’s Day gift. Clip the coupon on the Amazon page to get it for $30. It has 50 different scratch-off date ideas. There are symbols indicating the budget needed, whether you’ll need a babysitter, how much time it takes, and other date parameters, but the specific date itself is hidden until you reveal it like a scratch-off lottery ticket. If you’re running low on date ideas or just want some fun (and sometimes cheesy) spontaneity, this book is worth checking out—especially on sale.

The Adventure Challenge

… In Bed

These scratch-off ideas are designed to help you and your partner rekindle intimacy (or try something new in the bedroom).

The Adventure Challenge

Date Night

Get out of the house with these scratch-off guided dates that can help you discover new local spots (or just break out of the normal routine).

We-Vibe Sync 2 for $135 ($34 off)

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This is an excellent sex toy for long-distance couples, but you don’t have to be far apart geographically in order to enjoy it with your partner. The Sync 2 can be worn by someone with a vulva, either solo or during penetrative sex, and someone else controls the device using the remote control. It’s quiet and powerful, and its dual stimulation makes it approachable and fun for experienced couples as well as those who are new to using sex toys together.



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The Moto Watch Looks and Feels Like a Polar Fitness Tracker—but More Fun

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The Moto Watch Looks and Feels Like a Polar Fitness Tracker—but More Fun


However, rendered here in Motorola’s Watch app, everything looks fun and easy! Motorola (and Polar, I guess) uses Apple’s “close your rings” approach, with active minutes, steps, and calories. I particularly like that you can now use Polar’s sleep tracking with a cheaper Android watch. Polar takes into account sleep time, solidity (whether or not your sleep was interrupted), and regeneration to give you a Nightly Recharge Status.

You can still click through and see your ANS, but there’s a lot more context surrounding it. Also, the graphs are prettier. I compared the sleep, heart rate, and stress measurements to my Oura Ring 4, and I found no big discrepancies. The Moto Watch tended to be a little bit more generous in my sleep and activity measurements (7 hours and 21 minutes of sleep instead of 7 hours and 13 minutes, or 3,807 steps as compared to 3,209), but that’s usual for lower-end fitness trackers that have fewer and less-sensitive sensors.

On that note, I do have one major hardware gripe. Onboard GPS is meant to make it easier to just run out the door and start your watch. I didn’t find this to be the case. Whatever processor is in the watch (Motorola has conveniently chosen not to reveal this), it’s just really slow to connect to satellites and iffy whenever it does. This isn’t a huge deal when I’m just walking my dog or lifting weights in my living room, but it constantly cuts out when I’m outside and doesn’t have the ability to fill in the blanks, as another, more expensive fitness tracker would do.

It’s just really annoying to constantly get pinged about satellite loss and to have a quarter-mile or a half-mile cut out of your runs. That’s how I know the speaker works—it was constantly telling me it lost satellite connection during activities.

Finally, the screen and buttons are really sensitive. It does give you an option to lock the screen, but even then, I found myself accidentally unlocking it from time to time and turning the recording off when I didn’t mean to.

As I write this, I have seven different smartwatches from different brands sitting on my desk. If you’re looking for a cheap, attractive, and effective Android-compatible smartwatch, I would say that the CMF Watch 3 Pro is your best choice. However, I do think the integration with Polar was well done, and the price point is not that bad. I’m definitely keeping an eye out for what Motorola might have to offer in the future.



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These WIRED-Tested Automatic Pet Feeders Are the Cat’s Meow

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These WIRED-Tested Automatic Pet Feeders Are the Cat’s Meow


Compare Our Picks

Others Tested

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Closer Pets C200 2-Meal Automatic Pet Feeder for $50: This automatic feeder is super simple, which is both its weakness and its strength. It’s essentially two shallow plastic containers with stainless steel inserts (both dishwasher safe) and tamper-resistant lids that are locked and automatically open using an old-school egg-style timer that runs on a AA battery rather than electricity. Although the container has an ice pack to keep the wet food cool, after one night it lost virtually all of its coolness. There’s a lid-link clip attachment, a small piece of plastic that links the lids to ensure they will open at the same time, which is super helpful for owners of two cats like me. I wish the timer were electric so I could program it to the exact time I want it open, rather than guesstimating the timing on the little marks. However, this is a simple solution to help make sure both my cats are given wet food without me having to wake up at the crack of dawn.

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Photograph: Molly Higgins

Oneisall Cordless WiFi Automatic Cat Feeder for $50: I had high hopes for this cordless feeder that boasts a rechargeable battery with a 100-day life and an integrated app, but it’s just too unreliable. Through the app, you can program up to 10 daily meals (in 1-12 portions each), monitor pets’ eating habits, and customize meal calls. Unlike other apps, you’re not able to choose portion size, but instead have to multiply the number of servings. The app gave me constant problems, and would often disconnect from the feeder and be unable to reconnect to WiFi. Luckily, I was able to program meals via the screen and buttons, but it would’ve been a whole lot nicer if the app had worked reliably.

Do Not Recommend

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Courtesy of Amazon

Catit Pixi Smart 6-Meal Feeder for $117: Like others on this list, the Catit Pixi wet and dry feeder uses ice packs to keep wet food fresh and rotates the meals in six compartments on a set schedule. The schedule can be programmed via the app or changed on the body of the feeder. At this price point, the app shouldn’t be this limited and glitchy. The schedule is available in military time only, and the app is extremely limited—you can only set the meal schedule for the same day, and when I wanted to do only two to three meals a day spread over two days, I had to reschedule the meals for every new day. The feeder didn’t keep it cold enough to spread the meals out and the wet food was not at a safe eating temperature. At this price point, just get the Petlibro Polar wet feeder for a few bucks more.

Catit Pixi Smart Cat Feeder for $114: Kibble is stored in the body of this dry feeder, but it doesn’t have a window to visually check food levels. The calendar to plan meals shows only a week at a time, and although it should repeat daily based on the schedule, I found that some days there would be no schedule despite setting one up. The Pixi also doesn’t tell you how much food was dispensed; it just refers to it as a “portion”—I manually measured and found the portion was less than a tablespoon of kibble. After using it continuously for more than a month, I found it was extremely glitchy and almost never reliably stuck to the programmed schedule, sometimes skipping meals altogether. This feeder is potentially dangerous, and I’d caution pet parents against relying on it.

Closer Pets C500 for $75: This automatic wet and dry feeder can schedule up to four pre-portioned meals (and one meal given manually) that are opened on a timer system using three AA batteries (sold separately). The user presets the four times they want the bowls, which have ice packs underneath, to rotate. The bowls are quite deep and narrow and aren’t super easy for cats to reach, which could cause whisker fatigue. And although there are two relatively large ice packs, when I checked on the feeder after a night’s sleep, the packs weren’t very cold. This may be OK for kibble, but wet food was kept at unsafe temperatures, and my cats couldn’t reach all of the food.

Why Use an Automatic Feeder?

Automatic feeders are great for pet owners who want to help manage their pets’ weight and monitor eating patterns. Plus, they allow for a lot more control and precision for owners to learn exactly how much their cat is eating and when. Because cats are naturally more nocturnal, many have the annoying habit of waking you up in the early hours demanding food, and these allow you to set up a schedule that fits more to their schedule without inconveniencing yours.

Of course, it’s never recommended to leave pets alone for long periods, but these automatic feeders give more peace of mind and are a whole lot healthier for your pet than leaving a huge amount of food for free-feeding while you’re away for the night. Simply put, it’s an easier way to feed and monitor your cat’s health with less work for you, the human.

I have two rescue cats, ages 4 and 5, and they eat two wet-food meals a day and small amounts of dry kibble throughout the day. Vets (and TikTokkers) have successfully persuaded me to move toward a primarily wet-food diet, however, which has a higher water content. This provides more moisture in their diet, which helps with potentially life-threatening problems like UTIs, which are especially prevalent in male cats. I still like to give smaller dry-food meals throughout the day for them to satisfy their need for crunch.

For dry food, I use Hill’s Science Diet, and for wet food I use Friskies’ Shreds variety. (Yes, only Shreds. Fellow cat owners will understand.)

I set up the feeders, noting ease of set up, potential problems, and app navigation. I also tested various schedules and manual feedings through the app, noting any issues. I used each of the feeders for at least a week, if not more.

How Long Can I Leave My Cat Alone?

Although cats are generally thought of as less high-maintenance than dogs, it’s still not good to leave your cat for prolonged periods. Under dire circumstances, you can leave a cat alone for 24 to 48 hours with scheduled feedings and a clean water source, but it’s not ideal—especially for cats with health issues, kittens younger than a year, or very elderly cats. Although these feeders are automatic, and meals can be scheduled in advance and over multiple days, our pets still need their human pals around for enrichment, care, and well, love.



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