CES 2013 was the biggest show yet – with more than 150,000 people in attendance including 3,250 exhibitors across 1.9 million square feet of exhibit space.
At CES 2013, I saw two major trends emerge: the “smart home” and the emergence of fitness and health consumer gadgets to fit every lifestyle. People have been talking about smart homes and appliances for a long time, but this year at CES smart appliances were ubiquitous. The focus is less on the individual device and more on seamless connectivity whenever and wherever you may be for a completely connected digital lifestyle. Some highlights:
- Samsung announced a slew of cool products and was the most tweeted-about company during CES. On January 8th, they debuted the world’s first curved OLED TV that delivers a more panoramic and life-like viewing experience – very different from a flatscreen. Samsung also unveiled the “Evolution Kit” which enables the Samsung 2012 Smart TV to evolve into Samsung’s new 2013 Smart TV. Samsung’s Smart TVs let consumers enjoy voice control and motion control, live TV programs, VODs, apps and the Internet. The bottom line here is that I definitely need a new TV.
- Bill Clinton popped up as the guest speaker during the Stephen Woo Samsung keynote and discussed how technology can help to ease the world’s problems. He also touched on gun control and asked why anyone would need a 30-round clip for a gun.
- Deepak Chopra and Arianna Huffington participated on a digital health panel where they discussed how to use technology to teach us to bio-regulate ourselves and view healthcare in a more holistic vein.
- Whirlpool’s booth featured existing and future innovations including smart appliances like refrigerators with touch screens connected to the Internet.
- HAPIFork by HapiLabs. I was completely drawn to this colorful booth and must say intrigued by this “first look” at a fork that tracks how fast you eat. It will be available in the spring and I am definitely signing up for updates on this to see where it goes.
- iHealth is a creator of mobile personal healthcare products for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and they announced a wirelessGlucose-Monitoring System and a Pulse Oximeter to measure blood oxygen saturation rate and and pulse rate.
- FitBit introduced the “Fitbit Flex” wireless wristband that is waterproof and can be worn 24 hours a day to track exercise activities on an iPhone or Android device. It will be available in the spring and judging by how busy their booth was, it should be a popular new gadget.
