Top Tech Trends at CES 2017

Every year thousands of journalists travel to Las Vegas for the annual week-long tech love fest known as CES (Consumer Electronics Show) where we walk the show floors and exhibit halls, trying to make it through even a portion of the more than 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space. But all that walking is well worth it when you get to learn about and try the amazing and sometimes curious tech we’ll be seeing in the coming months.

From gorgeous TV’s that are 1/10^th of an inch thin to robots and voice-controlled appliances, the future was on display at the 50^th CES. Not all the products at the show are available to consumers right now. In fact, most were prototypes or samples; a glimpse into what we’ll see throughout the year. Many of these will be available closer to the end of the year, just in time for the holiday season. To get you excited in the meantime, here are the top trends from CES 2017.

Robots

Robots are already being used to make our lives easier, performing chores like vacuuming and cleaning. The robots on the 2017 show floor go a step further, with emotive eyes, artificial intelligence and the ability to recognize faces. Kuri is described as “a loyal little home robot with a cheerful personality.” It can greet you when you come from work, keep an eye on the house (its eyes are cameras) and alert you to anything out of the ordinary or respond to your voice commands. LG’s Hub Robot connects to other smart appliances in the house and using Amazon’s Alexa voice service, helps complete the household. But this robot also has as interactive display that can show images and content, play music, display the weather and so much more. 

Some robots, like the Hubble Hugo, use facial recognition technology to do their job. Hugo combines intelligence and voice technology to figure out what you need. It can look at a person’s face and determine if they’re happy or sad. While it may seem a little creepy, consider Hugo noticing a baby looks like it’s about to cry. It can send an alert to the parent or caregiver and then start playing calming music until help arrives.

Cars go High Tech

With all the cars and auto tech on display at CES, you might think we were at the International Auto Show. CES has become the place where automakers show off their latest tech and this year it was way more than self-driving concept cars.

Autonomous cars will be a reality sooner thank you think, with the big companies strutting their stuff, but there was also voice control integration from BMW, Ford, Hyundai and others. Yes, Cortana and Alexa will soon be riding shotgun with you. There were also really cool heads-up displays (HUD) from Navdy, which projects apps onto your car’s windshield and an incredible concept from BMW called HoloActive Touch, which creates a floating graphic over the console. Whoa!

Kids Will Learn to Code

When Lego comes out with a product designed to help teach kids how to code, you know kids and coding is becoming a thing. We’ve seen coding toys before; Wonder Workshops’s Dash and Dot are adorable robots that teach kids to code while they play. They’ve been a huge hit and this year I saw new designs from the company. WowWee has been at the forefront of coding toys, introducing Chip the Robot dog and Coji, toys that introduce coding concepts to kids. This year they introduced Elmoji, in partnership with Sesame Workshop, designed to teach kids basic coding using, you got it, emojis.

Lego showed off Lego Boost, a kit that lets kids as young as 7 build robots and then program them to do different things. The kit comes with those iconic Lego bricks and sensor and motor bricks to build 5 different robots. You can see my interview with Lego’s Design Director Simon Kent here.

TV’s: Thin is in

CES is the place to see the latest in TV technology and this year’s didn’t disappoint with LG introducing what it called it’s “wallpaper design” TV. The LG Signature OLED TV W series is so thin it looks like it’s glued to the wall. In fact, it’s about 1/10th of an inch thin with one single cable leading to a sound bar for audio, power and processing. Of course, it also features active HDR with 4K resolution, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos sound and colors so fantastically bright you’ll want one in every room. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to afford a houseful with the estimated price tag of $8,000.

Not all the TV’s at CES were that thin or that spendy, with Samsung showing off it’s Q line of smart TV’s, making use of what they call QLED technology. It boasts better color contrasts and more colors. The TV makers seem to have dropped two previous trends from this year’s line-up; 3D TV’s were nowhere to be found and curved TV’s are no longer the rage.

Smart Homes Controlled by Your Voice

Whether it’s lighting or laundry, home security or home cooking, you’ll soon be able to interact with your devices in a way that makes sense to the average user; with your voice.

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, while not among the over 3,800 exhibitors at the show, was front and center in most of the connected appliances on display. In fact, Lenovo showed off the Lenovo Smart Assistant; its own, slightly more attractive and slightly less expensive version of the smart digital assistant that lets you use voice commands to turn on lights, play music and control other devices in your smart home.

Baking Alexa capabilities into connected appliances will make it that much easier for the smart home of the future to become a reality. Using upcoming networked appliances from Whirlpool, GE, Samsung and LG will be easier than ever, but whether you really want to ask Alexa to start your washing machine or pre-heat the oven is another story.

Smart Home Appliances

In addition to lights and home security, home appliances are getting smarter. Samsung and LG are working to solve problems you probably didn’t even know you had. How many times have you gone to the store and bought something you already have in the fridge at home? LG’s Smart InstaView refrigerator has its own OS so you can connect to it from your mobile phone. Not sure if you already ate the fresh broccoli or if it’s still in the fridge? Bring up a picture of your fridge interior on your phone while you’re at the store. At home, you can look up recipes or shop on the 29-inch full HD touch screen display which turns into a transparent screen when you knock twice – letting you see what’s inside without ever opening the door. Samsung’s Family Hub 2.0 is similar, letting you see inside the fridge, stream music or watch videos on the screen and coordinate the family’s schedule.

Samsung is also trying to make it easier to do laundry with the FlexWash and FlexDry system that lets you do two loads of laundry at once. The FlexWash is both a front loader and a top loader and you can run two separate loads – on different settings – at the same time. Talk about a time saver!