CES 2015: Gadget convention looks beyond the geeks
Attendees wear Oculus Rift HD virtual reality head-mounted displays as they play EVE: Valkyrie, a multiplayer virtual reality dogfighting shooter game, at the Intel booth at the 2014 International CES, January 9, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)©AFP
The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset was the show-stealer in last year’s CES
The pitches from the more than 3,500 companies planning to attend the technology industry’s biggest annual convention next week in Las Vegas sound awfully familiar.
New wearable devices, connected cars, smart homes, digital healthcare and the internet of things — the most active themes at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show echo the topics that dominated the event last year.
Each January, CES exhibitors take over many of Vegas’s largest conference centres and hotel suites to show off the cutting-edge products they are planning to sell to consumers or supply to other tech companies over the coming year. Many of those products are not just gadgets that tech companies want consumers to buy for next Christmas, but products they want to define their company’s focus and trajectory for the next 12 months or more.
The particular challenge for exhibitors this year is to show not just how impressive their products are, but how they are going to win over consumers to emerging technologies, such as wearables and smart home appliances, that were hyped at CES last year but have been slow in gaining mass-market appeal. For tech companies, winning mass adoption for these new categories of products is key as growth slows in sales of smartphones, tablets and PCs and the industry looks for the next big area of expansion.
CES is also no longer just for consumer electronics companies. This year’s keynotes include the heads of Intel and Samsung, and senior executives from carmaker Ford, broadcaster CBS and fast-food chain McDonald’s.
“CES has turned into the new world’s fair,” said Frank Azor, general manager for Dell’s line of gaming computers. “It used to be about consumer electronics, and now everybody is using it to introduce the latest cool thing, even things that have no road maps to become products.”
Mercedes-Benz, the German carmaker, is bringing a new concept car to the show, while other automakers and car industry suppliers are showcasing new technologies for autonomous driving and in-car entertainment. This year’s convention also features special programmes for digital health, education technology, robotics and 3D printing.
But many launches at CES have struggled to gain traction outside the show. In 2010, tablets and ereaders from groups such as Microsoft and Lenovo featured prominently yet were rendered irrelevant just a few weeks later, when Apple launched its iPad. 3D TVs are another notorious flop that debuted in Las Vegas.
A look at the areas in focus at this year’s CES shows how the industry is still figuring out how to make its newest inventions resonate with a wider market than the fans flocking to Nevada this week.
Automotive
The car, jokes one technology executive heading to CES, was the original mobile device. But now, carmakers, technology leaders and media companies are all jostling to try and figure out how to make that original mobile device integrate with the far smaller ones that have proliferated since the days of Henry Ford.
Many of the major manufacturers are making an appearance at this year’s show, including Ford, Toyota and Chevrolet. Daimler will also be there, with its chairman planning to show off a new concept car and talk about autonomous car technology.
“I’m starting to think of CES as the car electronics show rather than the Consumer Electronics Show,” said Drue Freeman, an executive who works on automotive sales for NXP, the chipmaker.
The highest-profile recent automotive invention — Google’s self-driving car — will not make an appearance but CES will be rife with modifications of autonomous car technologies that work alongside drivers, as well as new ways to link up cars and smartphones so drivers can use their phones’ maps and music apps.
Many similar innovations made an appearance at last year’s show, including a self-parking feature demonstrated by BMW. Long development cycles in the car industry means the more novel breakthroughs will take years to hit the market. Chipmakers and software developers looking to sell more into automotive companies are also taking a long view and showing off concept cars that might never be adopted but might instead demonstrate the full capabilities of their engineers.
Wearables
Wearable technology received more hype than any other technology at last year’s CES, with smart watches and fitness trackers featuring prominently in keynotes from Samsung, Sony and Intel. But many consumers are still taking a wait-and-see approach.
Experimentation remains the dominant theme, with many in the industry predicting that the market will develop into a “long tail” of devices catering to specific needs, unlike smartphones where Apple and Samsung dominate.
Motion and biometric sensors are finding their way not only into wristbands but into running shirts, cycling jackets, socks and even pet accessories.
But with many features of fitness wristbands — such as step tracking — already seeming commoditised, fashion, branding and celebrity endorsements are one way of standing out. After fashion designer Tory Burch and leading fitness tracker maker Fitbit announced a partnership last year, US clothing brand Guess is now teaming up on a smart watch with wearables start-up Martian, in just one of the partnerships set to be on show at the event.
Others are going niche by building sophisticated medical-grade devices, such as Be Smart’s Bluetooth-enabled diabetes tracker, which can automatically share blood sugar data with a patient’s doctor.
Pankaj Kedia, who leads the wearables business for chipmaker Qualcomm, says the sector is still in its “first innings”.
“It’s an emerging category — we are early,” he says, predicting that much-needed improvements in battery life and device size will emerge in 2015.
Virtual reality headsets and smart glasses
The unexpected show-stealer of last year’s CES was the prototype of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The company was acquired by Facebook for $2bn in March and has just released its first headset in partnership with Samsung, the Gear VR.
Virtual reality looks set to stand out again this year.
Oculus will be showing its latest Rift this year but already faces a growing number of competitors and imitators. As well as VR, “augmented reality” — where specially equipped glasses show digital images that appear to hover above the real world — could make waves despite a difficult start for Google Glass, the technology’s best-known product. Among the devices on display will be Epson’s Moverio headset and new high-definition “smart glasses” from Osterhout Design Group, which has previously made augmented-reality eyewear for the US military.
4K TVs
Just a few years ago, 3D televisions were everywhere at CES, heralded as the next big media breakthrough. But consumers never warmed to the idea of wearing special glasses to watch TV and the industry has been anxiously hunting for a new idea ever since. Samsung’s big push into curved screens has been followed by other manufacturers, and they already account for one in 10 TV sales at UK retailer Dixons Carphone.
But analysts said the big TV breakthrough at CES will not come from a new technology but from the more prosaic matter of lower prices. A tipping point is finally approaching for 4K — also known as ultra-high definition (UHD) — which boasts four times the resolution of today’s HD sets. 4K sets from big-name manufacturers including LG are falling to below $1,000, and with content support from the likes of Netflix, 4K is now both appealing to and within reach of the mass market.
“TV makers have been shifting their manufacturing capacity to be ‘all in’ on the 4K TV market opportunity,” says John Curran, a managing director for Accenture’s communications, media, and technology group. “This has helped drive down costs. We expect to see many more sets at very compelling consumer price points.”
Smart home
Shortly after last year’s CES, Google spent over $3bn to buy Nest, a maker of internet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors that had demonstrated its devices at the show. The deal was meant to herald a year of consumer interest in so-called smart home technology, where household appliances connected to the internet and fixtures such as locks can be controlled via app. Not much, however, has followed on from the Nest deal. Locks that can open with a tap of a phone, refrigerators that send text messages and cloud-based security cameras remain niche among consumers, with many questioning not just the need for the technology but the privacy and security implications of bringing their homes online.
This year, companies are bringing out a host of new smart home gadgets they hope will spark new excitement. More than 900 exhibitors, including tech giants Samsung and Intel and appliance company Bosch, are showing their work in smart homes and the broader internet of things, or the integration of connectivity into everyday items.
A speech by Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the US Federal Trade Commission, about privacy issues and the proliferation of connected devices means CES 2015 will also probe some of the difficulties, technical and regulatory, facing such technology.
