As many of you know, I read a lot of science fiction and one of the things that constantly amazes me is how quickly science fiction turns to science fact. Self-driving cars, drones, tablets, smartphones and smart homes were all the stuff of sci-fi- but now are almost commonplace.
I remember just 5 years ago at CES when I saw my first drone. There was a guy in the parking lot doing an interview with a reporter with the drone. A few more drones made their way into the show in the next year but this year there were literally hundreds of drone booths. Small Dog Electronics sells drones from the largest manufacturer, DJI and also from GoPro once they actually ship their Karma drone. The DJI Mavic is a compact drone that comes with a camera and the Karma is similar but uses GoPro cameras on a special gimbal. I really haven’t figured out what the market is for drones other than hobbyists and those that want to make movies of their outdoor adventures.
There were some odd things there, too. Like smart ladies high heels that track fitness but also adjust height and temperature.
Alexa was everywhere. The Amazon AI devices, Echo, Dot and Tap where the hit of the show. Actually, not the devices themselves, I didn’t see an Amazon booth, but the connectivity. Everyone was announcing connectivity with Alexa including locks, lights, fitness gear and just about anything you can imagine. Forget robots (there were plenty there) but this artificial intelligence was everywhere. Many of the same companies were announcing connectivity with Google Home and Apple’s HomeKit but this was Alexa’s show. Ford and VW showed Alexa in their cars, Whirlpool had Alexa controlling washers and dryers and Samsung had Alexa controlling their automatic vacuum cleaner.
While I find Apple’s Siri way smarter than Alexa, Apple has missed the boat by not utilizing their technological capacity with Apple and Beats to come up with a killer device to bring Siri to the home. That’s my editorial observation and I’ll bet there are a bunch of engineers working hard in Cupertino on this. Nevertheless, Will and I had a mission and that was to find new products that are HomeKit compatible.
We were successful on the 2nd day when we went not to the Las Vegas convention center but over to the Sands Exposition Center where all the smart home, drones, heath and fitness and 3D printers were housed. We had great meetings with a number of vendors such as Honeywell, Kwikset, First Alert, Elgato and Withings. We will be bringing in a number of these products. We were also searching for another HomeKit compatible lock and I have always liked the design of the August locks. While they didn’t have a booth, we noticed that they had a hospitality suite. It was getting late in the day and we decided to make our way to the Venetian and the 30th floor where their suite was located. We walked in unannounced to a suite with one guy in it. We told him what we wanted to do and about our plans for our home automation displays at our stores and he showed us the products. He introduced us to the sales manager next door and we discovered we had been talking with the CEO of August. Long story short, we should have August locks for you really soon.
Virtual reality was also huge at the show with lots of the booths having VR setups to show their products or to show their VR set-ups. It was funny watching people with VR glasses on playing a game or virtually climbing a wall. It always looked like they were playing whack-a-mole.
No CES show is complete without looking at the automotive section and the TVs. We went to the big booths by LG, Samsung and Sony and were again amazed by the OLED TVs, the smart refrigerators, washing machines and other gear. I particularly liked the automated in-home dry cleaning station and the automated laundry folder. At the automotive section we were wowed by the very cool looking Faraday Future car as well as some of the futuristic designs from others.
I have been to a lot of shows and I always judge the success by whether it changes our business at all. This show will as we gained some great new vendors, had productive meetings with current vendors and took a peak at what they future might be like. I got home and decided to try one of those Samsung vacuums so I told Grace that I got a new robot. She seemed a bit bored and said “yeah, big deal, what does this one do?”