iHome makes AirPlay range 5 with iW5

Last week i wrote about the latest addition to the iHome AirPlay family, the iHome iW4 bedside alarm clock dock. Today however iHome has announced a fifth member to their iHome iW AirPlay range in smaller iHome iW5.

Last year at CES iHome present 3 AirPlay models of which one has made it to the market as per today, whilst the iW2 and iW3 has been hovering around in the twilight zone, until now. The two models have resurfaced with some improvements at CES 2012. The iHome iW2 is a smaller version of the iHome iW1, and comes without the rechargeable battery. The iHome iW3 has been re-engineered to house a rechargeable battery as well.

The iHome iW1 is also getting an upgrade in terms of availability in a white and silver chrome version. The iW2, iW3 and iW4 are also available on the two different finishes.

iHome iW5 as mentioned is the latest addition, and is a smaller and simpler Airplay speaker with interchangeable front speaker covers, giving you the ability to add some color to it. I will be back with more information on the iHome iW5 when available.

Hopefully we will see all these new iHome Airplay speakers in the market real soon.

[source: iLounge]

What happened to iHome iW2 and iW3?

Back at CES 2011 at the beginning of January, iHome presented the tech world with not one, but 3 different Airplay speaker models; the iHome iW1, iW2 and iW3. 10 months later we still only have the iHome iW1 on the market. What happened iHome?

As Airplayspeakers.com notes, the iHome iW2 made a brief appearance on Amazon.com before quickly being removed again, besides that there is very little information to find on any of the two missing iHome Airplay speakers. Even iHome does not seem to want to share much information on them, perhaps in fear of making customers once again wait for nearly a year before the announcement of the first one and it actually reaching the market.

If i were to speculate, it could also be that iHome have chosen to put the other two systems on the backburner while they wait to see the response to the iHome iW1 and the other Airplay speakers in the market at the moment. Knowing that Apple is charging more for Airplay technology and that even getting hold of the technology to implement in devices can be a bit tricky, it could be that iHome is just quietly letting these two systems disappear on the radar. I'm sure they are not missed by many others then those of us following Airplay speakers closely.

Fear not though as there are some good Airplay speaker options in the market already at a wide price range starting around £200.