I took a few less photos today as I went to a new place (C-Space) that ended up being a dud, and revisited the main convention center. I also visited Google and some other cool out of the way spots too.
Yeah, Google was out of the way located in a central outdoor area along with Ryder and Waymo.
Google had a whole pavilion that was all about their android, smart home, and cars. One of the similarities I’m seeing with Samsung and Google is the “transfer your screen and music among devices” theme. It sounds like a great option, but even trying to get our Samsung phones to cast to our Samsung TV at home is sketch, and doing it from a Windows machine is trying at times. Not to mention the buttons, menu options, clicks and pokes you have to do this seem to change every 6 months. Smart TV? Screen Sharing? Quick Share? Screen Cast? Luckily my son usually knows what the latest is, but still takes a few minutes to get it smoothly sharing.
I’m going to hop onto a few soap boxes today, and we’ll start with google and matter.
So here are some facts… I use z-wave in my house with a homeseer controller. I have some automation setup but it always seems to be about 85% reliable. That isn’t due to any direct failures anywhere, but maybe I’ve chosen the wrong attribute, or the wrong function.
I still have a light that is supposed to turn on for 5 minutes when one of 4 things is activated, but I’ve seen it turn on, and then immediately turn off, and I have no idea why. Troubleshooting this stuff isn’t the easiest either.
So when I learned about matter (and I’m still learning about it) I thought things would get easier. I’ll tell you now I went to see HomeSeer’s site, saw they have a Q&A, and then saw you need some random password to see the details… Yeah, that makes sense.
So I haven’t experienced it yet… Or have I? I just added another Nest thermostat to my house and adding it was pretty easy, just point your phone at the QR-ish looking code on the back, and it adds it pretty easily.
But I asked the question, what happens when I sell the house? Does someone have to pull out each of these devices and rescan them? The answer was, hopefully the previous person sells / gives you the hub they are all associated with. here I thought… I bet disassociating that hub from your Google account is super easy. <- Being sarcastic here.
“If they don’t, then what?” I asked. He said he had to ask someone else. Saturday was my day for stumping people, keep reading for more of that.
He said, yes, for things like outlets and what not, you’d have to take off the cover plate, pull the device out of the wall and get to the barcode. You’d also have to reset every device.
WHOA.
Can we just take a moment to realize what walking into a previously owned smart home will be like in the future. Hopefully you know what you have, and then you have to buy a new hub, and then you have to reset everything in the house. I see a market for someone to do this for me, because I’m a HandyNerd, and even I don’t want to do this.
I continued walking around outside and came across Ryder. There were 3 people in their booth and 2 robots. They all belonged to Ryder, so I thought I’d wander over and see what was happening.
Turns out that Ryder does e-commerce fulfillment. They do it with common stuff, and what I learned from a UPS person what UPS calls “ugly freight” which is stuff like bulky furniture and exercise gear. That stuff is expensive to ship via UPS and FedEx, so Ryder has setup a fulfillment, and even white glove (which I would assume means assembly) service to fulfill that need.
In the warehouse they have 3 different kinds of robots helping them pull stuff off the shelves. This here is their smallest robot. It will arrive at a location, summon a person to pull it off the shelf and then that person puts it onto the bot. The bot then goes to a sorting packing area, and the distribution process continues from there. Something I didn’t know Ryder did, so I’m glad I stopped by their booth.
Waymo was at CES as well. I forget that Waymo is a competitor to Uber/Lyft in some markets, but Waymo is all self driving. Seems they are only in a few markets that have good weather at the moment. People were talking about the “loop” here in Vegas which I guess is a custom tunnel for Tesla vehicles that no one seems to be impressed with.
The trucks aren’t in a production state right now. But Waymo Trucking seems to be outlasting some of their competitors who seem to be going under quickly. I think what Waymo is doing right, is going slow and steady and only announcing really amazing achievements. On the right is a Waymo car. I’ve never seen one as I don’t frequent the markets they are in, so I thought you might like to see one too.
Now let’s talk about cheese.
This group was also in the parking lot handing out cubes of their cheese. 3 flavors; plain, blueberry and cheddar. I tried the cheddar. It tasted like a block of american or maybe velveeta cheese, which wasn’t bad, but being from Wisconsin, isn’t the best cheese in the world. But this cheese was non-dairy which I thought was pretty neat, so I asked… How does it melt, and as if on cue, out popped a person with some grilled cheese sandwiches.
It melts pretty well I have to say, again, just like American cheese.
I couldn’t tell if these people were actually in stores yet, but they do seem to be based out of my backyard in Virginia.
So if you are looking for a almond based – American cheese based substitute, this one seems pretty good.
Again… for American cheese.
The next group I went to see was… Well… Now I forget the name of it. Because they seem to be one of those companies that makes a lot of parts for cars, that car makers use, but it isn’t usually amazing or wow, so the name just usually gets lost.
That’s right… Valeo.
They had a demo with new OLED animated turn signals and other stuff that I couldn’t take a picture / photo of, but are on their facebook page (something they all thought was weird). What they did have to experiment with was this driver attention monitoring system.
Remember in previous days I talked about driver monitoring and insurance, well here is the future. It could actually see where my eyes were pointed, what I was looking at, and all the angles of my head. If I started to look away from the front of the road too long, my Distraction would go up.
If my head started to tilt to the side for too long, my drowsiness would go up. That’s actually a picture of me with blue laser beams coming out of my eyes showing where I am looking. On the left, all the angles of my head. It seemed pretty accurate, though when I asked the demo lady to see if it could see through her hair, the system couldn’t. Which is good, because you shouldn’t be driving with hair in your eyes. I do wonder what happens with sunglasses though.
They also make other parts for the car, and the “see-through plexiglass car” was all the rage at this year’s CES, so there is another cool one.
I thought this was pretty cool, also in the parking lot, was a mobile wood fired pizza oven company.
Seems you could rent this out, buy one, or just ask them to show up and make you pizzas.
Brings a whole new meaning to fire truck!
Insert your own trumpet noise here 🙂
I’m just now noticing that I didn’t have any photos from the C-Space, which if you attend in the future, you can probably skip. It was all about making VR worlds easily, translating stories for different markets and the weather channel was there. It really was an odd collection of stuff. They had a forum space there that was all about NFTs and Crypto. There was a guy on stage that said it would be very difficult for Nike to make a custom line of shoes for every person, but the could make a custom NFT for that shoe for everyone. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but it was something close to that.
- No one wants an NFT shoe
- I think the day is coming when custom shoes are a reality – be it with the soles and even the outside
In this C-Space was a Delta / Starbucks – link your accounts and get a starbucks card display. It was a full light up display with 2 fake delta airplane windows. Link your account, press the button, and get a gift. They group did a great job of hyping up every win, so it drew a great crowd. It goes to show that if you have high energy people in your booth and something to do, you can get good traffic. If people are just sitting in the booth and looking at their phones… well… you get nothing.
Oh, Instacart was in that space too. They had carts there that looked a LOT like the Amazon Fresh carts, though they said they were totally different. But it seems that Instacart is putting these carts in a few select stores (like Kroger) and doing automated shopping.
They also had a “check out on your phone” app. Similar to the Wegmans app. I asked them how they are going to overcome the issues with shrink (theft) that shut down the Wegmans app, and she didn’t have a great answer. She did mention the idea was for it to be used in smaller stores like a bodega that might have better oversight of the shoppers, and just make the walk out / check out process easier.
After all that… I went back to LG. My son asked for some more photos and because their booth was so crowded it was hard to explore last time. This time, everything seemed about 1/4 as full.
First off, their wireless 4K TVs. I’m not usually a big fan of water in a booth (Togg did this, and it was at floor level and I have to imagine a lot of wet shoes), but here it was really cool. These displays bounced up and down, and the picture was just amazing. Of course, dark environment, blazingly bright displays with high contrast pictures makes ALL displays look amazing, but these were wow!
This picture just isn’t great. I mean, looking at this, except for the fact that it was 2-D, it looked like a window to the real world. And with some of the eye tracking and 3-d looking type tech I saw, I have no doubt that soon we’ll be able to see these as real replacements for windows. Just incredible.
On the left was a SUPER thin (thus why everyone is looking around the back) transparent OLED TV. I didn’t see the transparent part of it since it was on the whole time, but it was incredibly thin.
On the right, continued to show off the wireless OLED tech. It was amazing, these pictures do NOT do it justice.
Leaving the LG booth I saw some color blocks and a “room experience” which looked like it projected the scene beyond the TV. I couldn’t tell if LG was selling… the room, or the media or what. But what I did see were these color blocks.
This was so you could match the vibe of … you? to the room? It was just panels on a fridge at the moment, but they were coming out with panels you could put elsewhere.
I think this was a competitor to the Samsung – music sync I’ll show you below.
This is the samsung version
Who do you think did it better? I know who I think is the winner.
I walked out of the LG area and followed along a back wall. You never know who you are going to see in these areas. There were A LOT of Chinese vendors selling the new GaN power adapters. If this is any indication on supply, I’d wait before you buy one. I just bought one for $100, but there were SO many vendors, I have to believe prices will be coming down soon.
What I did find was a group doing cool AR (augmented reality). There were a few AR groups there, but this one had a great demo, and good examples on how to use it.
You can see in the image on the right a little green square. That was being projected onto the glass so I could see what I needed to see as an overlay to what I was doing. These glasses can do zoom, and come with a full Android stack, so you can even add apps to them. The green one had video in both eyes so I could see 3-D images. I thought the UI/UX was a little clunky as the tapping and gestures didn’t work great.
Then I went around the corner and tried a different version. This was in color and only one eye. These felt better and the UX seemed a LOT better. It has a camera on it, microphone. If you are doing remote troubleshooting of anything, and you need to guide hands on keyboard… These really are a must.
Did you know Kodak made watches? Neither did I. Going to their website, with one click you end up reading Spanish. It’s all very confusing. Also… Version 0.0.1. Uhh, it feels like I’m being sold a car that might be held together with duct tape and dreams.
This next thing is… Cool, but I don’t know what for. But just showing that CES has EVERYTHING.
There was a booth there showing off their sensor. It could detect my hand proximity, taps and even presses. It was super sensitive, but accurate, and not that expensive. They were saying these sensors could be used in something like a sleep tracking mask because it could sense where the eyes were looking… just through the mask.
It’s a cool tech I don’t have any use for, but wanted to put it here since they were smart, nice, and had a cool product. Oh, this can also be used on Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, and could be used for a “wave to open the door” kind of thing. Check them out if you need a cool wavy sensor. Imagine opening your secret compartment with specific taps and waves of your finger/hand.
This was the only image that seemed to be displayed on this thing, so this is the image you get…
It’s VERY transparent LED display, and it was pretty impressive. That’s not a reflection back there, that’s see through. I got a close up picture of what the LEDs look like too.
I kept looking at this image thinking it was another set of elevator buttons, but the holes are holes, and at every intersection is an LED. Just incredible tech.
To give you a flavor of being on the show floor, something I wasn’t expecting were booths to be closed. I always wonder about the empty spots, people who didn’t show up or went bankrupt between buying the space and showing up. But there were about 3-4 booths I saw closed for Shabbat.
It was amazing to see this as having a booth at CES is expensive, and closing it down is… wow. I’m not questioning anyone here, and people can do what they like. But I really wonder if the ROI on these booths is SO high at CES that closing it down for almost 24 hours is still worth it to come.
But also… How is Kodak still so popular? I just NEVER hear of them. That and RCA. What is going on?
I wandered into the HiSense booth. HiSense, TCL and many others have really cool displays from TVs to projectors. I thought this one was especially neat.
The picture was really good, but check out the angle. it is off to the side, but still projecting a VERY square product on the wall. The projectors I used to own had some ability to change keystone and other aspects, but this is really impressive. Really small form factor too!
Oh, do you want to see what the world will look like in a few years if you combine tech, creepy and comfort?
On the left were a bunch of people in VR. Their slowly weird and semi-coordinated movements… It was just creepy. On the right is a small selection of CES attendees who have been chosen for cryo-sleep and are headed to Mars. Just kidding. One of many vendors selling all encompassing massage chairs.
I think in 2-3 years, you are going to see haptic feedback incorporated into these chairs along with VR systems and have a full encompassing experience. Well, for relaxation anyway, not for like VR boxing.
My son wanted to know more about Samsung’s work in helping people with visual disorders be able to see things on TV.
You can see their efforts in Relumino. On the left is a standard view, an on the right is a contrast with outlines view. I’m VERY much oversimplifying it, but that’s what it looks like. You can see they even have glasses on the left to help you understand what it feels like to have these kind of eye problems.
Seems on the right they are actually building this tech into glasses too. It’s pretty cool that Samsung is focusing on helping out people with this issue.
This was one I wasn’t expecting. Nikon was there showing off their typical Nikon stuff. If you haven’t heard, they are getting out of their DSLR market, but from the look of their booth, they have plenty else to do.
Check out this rotorcraft with arms on it.
That is a mock up wind turbine blade, and they were showing how their devices can fly up and inspect these types of structures.
It was pretty cool, and neat to see things from vendors I didn’t expect.
Speaking of stuff I didn’t expect, I guess I was at the right place at the right time to see a new thing.
I guess Honda and Sony are getting together to make… a Car? I could only record this lady talking about how to change the themes of the car for so long. I’m linking to some other reporting here as they go into details about it. But it seems kinda interesting… I guess.
I mean it looks cool. But.. Sony?
The Sony booth was large and impressive too.
A lot of open space. One thing they were working on was delivering an at home sporting environment to the user. Meaning they had a whole section dedicated to watching sports events and making you feel as though you were really there. It wasn’t a headset kind of VR thing, it was a walk in to a small bathroom sized room kind of thing and be surrounded by the sights and sound of the stadium.
I was walking along and saw this cool projector. I thought it was neat that it was RIGHT up against the wall, and still displaying a really square image. The projector was less than half a meter away from the wall it was on. Really cool.
I have to say, this next booth was probably one of my favorites… Audio Technica. I’ve been a big fan of AT for a while. They make good products, so getting an opportunity to see and experience them first hand was great. Where else would you get to listen to their products with a record player?
If none of these headphones were expensive enough, you could get these for just a small price.
OK, back to some innovations and ambiance.
Just putting this here as I’ve never seen the Starbucks logo / brand diluted in any way, and thought this was neat.
This was a neat company, but all the reps were sitting at tables and stools looking at their laptops so I couldn’t ask any questions. The short of it is taking pictures of food, and doing things with it. You know if you do a food diary you have to seemingly know all about the food and enter it in? What if you could just take a picture of it. That’s the theory behind this. They have other models to that scan food on the way out (tracking production and inventory) and on the way back in (to track waste). Seemed pretty cool.
Some more electric motorcycles. They only had one version, and this is it. You could actually throw a leg over them too. I like them for a few reasons; They are electric, no shifting – just power, less noise. Though I hear some of them actually come with noise makers so they still sound like an ICE bike, which really? Do we need that in our lives that badly?
FYI, the horn works and sounds terrible. As I was getting on I accidentally hit the horn. I thought it was funny. Few else did.
ROBOTS! Finally a robot that actually looked useful. Yesterday we saw the labrador and some other offers from Amazon. But none of them seemed like they could do much. I saw this robot and it has arms, and trays, and appendages and all sorts of features. It can even get on elevators and stuff. I’m really exicted to see where robots like this go in the future. Though, if I recall, they seem to have been stuck at this point for a while. I’d really like to see them speed up, and have a bit more automatic autonomy – learn from each other, and use ML to actually make themselves better. That would be cool!
Remember that cool concept for side view mirrors I found at the first day. I found another vendor who actually implemented it.
So there isn’t even a stick out where the usual mirror is, but a little lower down is the camera, then inside the cockpit is the display. I really think this is great for many reasons, but hopefully augmenting the data on the screen to show you tips about not running over people, things, etc. are on the top of my list!
By the way, this is on a car called the Lightyear. It is a solar car that doesn’t need a lot of recharging. This was the Lightyear zero. They have a Lightyear 2 behind some slats you can kind of peek through. It was weird. Anyway, cool looking car, but NO way I’d fit into it.
Speaking about cars I did fit into, a Mercedes SUV. The thing I thought was really neat was that it had a setting where you tell it how tall you are, and it adjusts the seats automatically. The maximum was 7′ 2″ (it also had metric). I’m 6′ 6″ tall, and the maximum seemed to fit pretty well.
I’m quite certain this is well out of my price range, but it was at least within my physical range!
For a vehicle I did fit well into… a 1 Ton CAT truck
This was actually pretty cool. They even had machines you could remotely control. Like, you could sit here in Las Vegas and control a machine elsewhere to do digging and stuff. I may have to go back and try that out!
I closed out the day, and the floor with this quick image of a cool looking delivery truck. It’s electric too! Boogie woogie woogie.
Going back for Day 4 today (Sunday). I’ll let you know what I find, and talk about sustainability in my next post. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
