Whilst most people start January looking to the year ahead, over in Las Vegas, January means looking to the future with CES where some great tech companies showcase their latest innovations. So what were some of the technological benefits on show at this 50th year of the show?
Smart home technology has been around for a while but this year one of the big themes in that area was connectivity. There were more devices on show that interact with each other thus gathering more data to make our lives easier. This has always been a question with the smart home – how does the end user benefit? For the consumer to understand the usefulness of the technology it has to add value and increased connectivity creates a really smart home. “Making your life easier” and “convenient” were buzz words amongst the smart home vendors.
When we say wearables we often think of fitness trackers but 2017 is about to change that and we’ll see there’s more to wearables than watches. There were still a lot of offerings for sports people but this year’s wearable collection also featured innovations from fashion technology to health technology. We saw wearables moving into areas like connected hearing aids, blood sugar monitors for diabetes sufferers and even wearables with built in airbags to protect when you fall. One of my favourites was the Gyenno spoon which helps people with hand tremors shake less when eating thus making an everyday task less stressful and more enjoyable. All this can add real value, not only helping keep us healthier but also reducing medical costs for individuals and health organisations worldwide.
Augmented and Virtual Reality showed how they are expanding from being a gaming tool to something that can be used by consumer and businesses alike. Companies are working on increased immersive experiences as these devices become more commonplace and image quality improves. There were also a lot of accessories to go with VR headsets, from shoes by Cerevo that make you feel you’re walking on the surface you’re seeing to motion sickness bands which stop nausea you may be feeling on your VR experience. Again, the better this technology gets the more beneficial it becomes for the end user. There are already cases of it being used to help stroke victims walk again and of bringing history lessons to life in the classroom.
There were far more things going on than you can put in a blog post, but what stands out is how much great technology is out there – and not just innovations that exist because they can, but innovations that exist because they can make our lives better, easier and healthier. From big companies to small start-ups CES continued to push the boundaries showcasing some great tech minds working on today’s problems and how to solve them. Now the key is to ensure this technology is translated into a message enabling the end user to understand its relevance to them.
Would anyone have imagined all this 50 years ago? Who knows what will be on show 50 years from now!