The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held last week at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, is the place you go to see the latest in cutting-edge technology.
While most of the tech at this year’s CES was what analysts expected — virtual reality headsets, drones, wearables and, or course, televisions — there were a few unique products on display.
Some of these products are actually not new — they’ve been in development for a while, often financed through crowdfunding campaigns — but are expected to reach consumers in 2016. Others may turn out to be “vapourware” and never reach the consumer market.
Here are 13 tech products profiled at CES 2016 that you might find either fascinating or crazy.
1. LifeFuels Smart Nutrition Bottle
If you think there’s no way a water bottle could possibly be improved by technology, think again.
LifeFuels won an innovation award at CES for their high-tech water bottle that uses “fuelpods” to dispense vitamins, nutritional products, and flavour into your water.
The BPA-free bottle has a small display and buttons you can use to dispense the supplements or flavours, and connects to a smartphone app that tracks your intake of water and supplements.
The bottle comes with 10 fuelpods (equalling about 130 servings) for a price of $200 US.
For more information, visit www.lifefuels.co.
2. Bartesian Home Cocktail Machine
Bartenders may want to start looking for other work.
The Bartesian Home Cocktail Machine uses custom capsules to produce mixed drinks. You select your favourite capsule and let the machine mix you a “perfect drink”.
Created by two Kitchener-Waterloo entrepreneurs, the machine will launch with six cocktail capsules: Margarita (tequila, Cointreau, lemon juice, lime juice), Sex on the Beach (vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry juice, pineapple juice), Cosmopolitan (vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, lime juice), Bartesian Breeze (rum, strawberry, pineapple, lime, coconut juice), Uptown Rocks (gin, white grape, peach and lemon juice, cilantro), and Zest Martini (vodka, grapefruit juice, cucumber bitters).
It’s like a Keurig machine for cocktails (although if you drink cocktails like you drink coffee, you may have a problem).
The machine costs $299 US, with a pack of 12 capsules costing $20 US.
You can pre-order from www.bartesian.com with an expected delivery date of October 2016.
3. PicoBrew Home Beer Brewing Machine
For people who prefer making their own beer rather than cocktails, there’s the Pico Home Beer Brewing Machine.
PicoBrew’s first automatic beer brewing machine (the Zymatic) was a prosumer product at $1999 USD that required some brewing skills, but the Pico version is cheaper, smaller, and easier to use. You order “Pico Packs” — designed by independent craft brewers — containing the malt and hops to make your beer of choice, insert it into the Pico, and the machine will brew the beer (it takes about three weeks).
Although beer purists are skeptical, people who have tasted the Pico-brewed beer say it’s delicious.
You can preorder the Pico now for $599 US from www.picobrew.com.
4. Cleverpet
Here’s a way to keep your dog entertained during the day when you’re at the office.
The CleverPet is a plastic dome with flashing lights, speakers, three paw-friendly touch pads, and a food dispenser. It’s programmed with a series of increasingly complex games that prompt your dog to press the pads in a certain order. When your dog does it successfully, the CleverPet dispenses a treat.
The device, which was awarded first prize at CES 2016’s LaunchIt competition, will cost $299 US and can be preordered at www.getcleverpet.com.
A word of warning: if your dog isn’t that clever, you might just end up with a very expensive doorstop.
5. WonderWoof Dog Fitness Tracker
If your pooch is a bigger couch potato than you are, you might want to consider the WonderWoof fitness tracker.
It’s a bowtie-shaped device that attaches to your dog’s collar and uses Bluetooth to connect to an app on your smartphone. Using the app, you can monitor your dog’s activity in real time, how much activity your dog should be getting, and can even post your dog’s activity achievements to Twitter.
The battery in the device, which is waterproof, lasts about a week before needing to be recharged. The WonderWoof is available in six colours and costs $95 US.
A feline version (called WonderMeow of course) is currently in development.
For more information or to order, visit www.wonderwoof.com
6. Cat Ear Headphones
Have you ever fantasized about having glowing cat ears? Then these are the headphones you’ve been waiting for.
Axent Wear’s Cat Ear Headphones come in four colours (red, blue, green and purple) that light up for about five hours on a single charge.
They have an external speaker mounted on each cat ear, so you can blast your music to everyone around you if the glowing headphones aren’t getting you enough attention.
They also have an integrated microphone so you can take calls, perhaps from all the people you’re annoying.
The headphones cost $129 US and are available via www.axentwear.com.
7. HUSH Smart Earplugs
If your roommate or partner has purchased the Cat Ear Headphones, you might want to invest in a pair of these Bluetooth-capable earplugs.
They promise to block out all the noise that keeps you up at night, while still letting you hear important alarms delivered through a smartphone app.
The earplugs use a combination of passive and active noise cancellation to mask noise up to 70 decibels, and can also deliver white noise, ocean waves, rainfall, and other sounds to your ears.
However, they aren’t cheap at $150 US (plus $20 if you want custom-molded earplug tips).
For more information, visit www.hush.technology
8. Digitsole SmartShoes
Digitsole has already been selling “SmartSoles” — Bluetooth-enabled shoe inserts that control the temperature of your shoes via a smartphone app and tracks your steps and calories burned — and now they’ve transferred the same functionality into a shoe.
In addition to controlling the shoe’s temperature and providing activity tracking, the smartphone app can loosen or tighten the “SmartShoes”.
The shoes will be available as sneakers or pumps at a cost of $450 US. For that price, you could buy a lot of really warm socks instead.
For more information, visit www.digitsole.com/smartshoes.
9. Blink Board
Over the holiday season, you probably heard stories about the misleadingly named hoverboard — a battery-driven, two-wheeled, self-balancing scooter. There were news reports of hoverboard batteries exploding, and there are lots of hilarious videos of people falling off them.
If you want an alternative to the hoverboard, you could try the Blink electric skateboard from Acton (which previously developed motorized electric roller skates called RocketSkates).
Controlled by a handheld remote, the electric skateboard can reach speeds up to 19 kilometres per hour and go a distance of up to 9 kilometres on a single two-hour charge. You can ride the two-speed board either forward or backward, and it’s small and light enough to be slung over your back.
The Blink Board cost $499 USD and is available from www.rocketskates.com/blink.
10. Sensorwake
If you hate the sound of your alarm clock in the morning, then how about waking to the smell of coffee in the morning?
The Sensorwake olfactory alarm clock uses cartridges to release a pleasant scent of your choice — chocolate, peppermint, espresso, croissant, seaside (flower scents), and jungle (cut grass and leaves). Each scent capsule, which can be recycled, will last a month.
The inventor (Guillaume Rolland, a French teenager who hates mornings) claims the clock has a 99 percent success rate at waking people up, but there’s also a more traditional backup sound alarm if it doesn’t.
The clock, which will start shipping this spring, costs $109 US and can be preordered from www.sensorwake.com.
No word on why bacon wasn’t included as one of the scents.
11. Samsung smart belt
Samsung’s WELT belt looks like a normal belt but it can record your waist size, the number of steps you take per day, as well as the amount of time you spend sitting down.
The “wellness belt” (hence the name) then sends this information to a smartphone app that analyses it and provides you with personalized health care and weight management plans.
The product is in development at Samsung’s Creative Lab — the company’s innovation programs that helps employees nurture their own creative business ideas — so there’s no pricing or availability yet.
12. Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator
Another product from Samsung that will actually be available this year is the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator.
The fridge has a large high-definition touchscreen on one of the doors that not only displays what’s inside the fridge, but can also send a picture of the contents to your smartphone and tell you what you need — which can be helpful if you’re at the grocery store and wondering whether you need something.
It can advise you when perishable items like milk and eggs have been in the fridge for a long time. Because the fridge is connected to the internet, it can suggest receipes based on what you have in the fridge and allow you to order groceries directly from the touchscreen screen.
The fridge also comes with calendar and weather apps as well as a sticky-note app so you can post digital notes on the fridge. It also has built-in stereo speakers so you can stream music.
All this technology doesn’t come cheap. The Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator will retail for $5,000 US.
For more information, visit www.samsung.com.
13. EHang 184
It’s not quite a flying car, but it’s close.
At this year’s CES, a Chinese company called EHang unveiled the first aerial drone that’s large enough to carry a person.
The Ehang 184 is a battery-powered single-seat self-driving quadcopter that’s 1.5 metres tall, weighs 200 kilograms, and can carry up to 100 kilograms for around 20 minutes on a single charge. It’s designed to fly at altitudes of between 300 to 500 metres, although it can reach 3,500 metres, and has a top speed of 100 kilometres per hour. The quadcopter can be controlled manually from inside using a tablet interface.
Ehang says the quadcopter will be available later this year — at an estimated price between $200,000 and $300,000 US.
For more information, visit www.ehang.com.
