While the leading edge of smartphone designs aim to expand viewing area for handheld or even desktop usage, sometimes the combination of big touchscreens and standard cellular and Wi-Fi support isn't up to the task. This can be especially true in highly mobile or remote environments. A trio of products can offer solutions for more spontaneous group conversations in the field or help a smartphone when it's far afield from a cell site.
RELAY+
Following major consolidation in the US cellular market, Republic Wireless has been exploring new ways for customers to engage with its cellular network. A few months ago, it teamed up with Gblah to introduce a home VoIP solution that is tied to a customer's cellular phone number. Now, it is rolling out the second generation of its portable speakerphone, Relay.
The first Relay device[1] was aimed squarely at kids as an alternative to bulky and complicated location-tracking smartwatches. While Republic says that business is chugging along, it saw the broader potential of the device as requests for orders of 50 or more units started coming in, signaling interest from larger organizations for frontline workers for which a smartphone was a poor fit for reasons ranging from the appearances of staff twiddling away on their screens to a fragility.
In some ways, a modern-day version of the push-to-talk devices once synonymous with Nextel, the new Relay+[2] is smaller but Republic claims it is just as durable and includes a more powerful processor and longer battery life. A cloud-based management system allows administrators to assign groups of users that can communicate; an app also lets those without the device hop in on the conversations. Relay+ also includes a panic button feature that users can activate by pressing the device's main button five