1. Wearables are everywhere

They have been on the rise for many years and already became everyday items for some of us. But now, as seen at CES, the wearables have become mainstream consumer products. With offerings both from startups and traditional consumer electronic companies, they are everywhere.

Everyone has a wristband and most of them look the same. All of them track your steps, basic sports, and sleep. And they run the same kind of software with similar infographics. CES showed that this is now a hugely competed market with very little differentiating factors.

The best hardware items compete with compelling design, price, special sensors, or by compatibility with other devices and services. The wristband has become a commodity, and it’s up to branding, software and channel strategy to be successful in this field.

On the software side, winners will be the ones that combine data from multiple sources. The rising sportswear company Under Armour has a different strategy and doesn’t sell their own wearable but instead work to combine data from multiple sources, and have many of the popular wearables on sale.

2. Robots arrive with a sense of humor

CES showcased a wide array of robots, too. Yet, one company was above the rest with its functional and market-ready robots. Ecovacs showcased the Winbot window cleaning robot. The company also won the CES Innovation Award for RAYBOT, a robot that cleans solar panels.

The most surprising thing was that I found myself having a conversation with Benebot, the cute chipmunk sounding sales robot with a sense of humor. Also, Lowe’s Innovation Labs showcased a sales robot that will help you find your way through the warehouse store, the OSHbot. Within a year or two, these helper robots are ready to become quite usual and helpful in big stores.

3. Smart home comes in nice package

If everyone has some kind of a wearable wristband in their offering, the second most popular gadget this year must be a self-service home security kit. Many of these are packed with multiple sensors, cameras, motion detectors and alarms, and all of them naturally work with your phone.

Withings Home is a beautiful product that has made home security camera into a warm and cosy thing. The real user experience is done on the software side, with timelapse views, social media style picture highlights of day, 10x remote zoom, and a 135° angle view. They have made a good job on stripping all the negative sides of having a camera in your home and making the product also a beautiful element with wooden and white plastic surface.

The Swedish Sense Mother has also made a nice brand-driven IoT package for homes, that helps you self-build smart tracking to your home and enable smart notifications. It takes care that your kids brush their teeth, tracks when they come home, and reminds the granny to take the pills every day.

In the smart home, home appliances will not only talk with each other but also through open APIs in the web. Whirpool introduced the Smart grid button which connects the washing machine with real-time pricing data by your power supplier and runs the washing machine during the off-peak hours. No need for smart sensors or other external devices, just load the machine, press the button, and let it handle energy efficiency for you.

4. Intelligent cameras come everywhere

As good quality cameras have become smaller and prices are low, it has become desirable to integrate them, a lot of them, to products. This was also evident at CES. Cameras will be everywhere: in cars, at home, on skiing glasses, on drones, and even inside ovens and dish washing machines. The Maserati concept car had even replaced mirrors with cameras to enable broader and smarter views when you need them.

And it’s not just that cameras bluntly film, but use software to analyze the picture for other purposes. Face recognition keeps track who is at home, apps help you zoom and turn camera remotely, and motion sensors alert your phone when there is someone in carage. The fridge cameras show the view inside from your phone, and Panasonic showcased a concept fridge that recognized the contents with camera and suggested recipes with these ingredients. NVIDIA introduced real time camera analysis of the surroundings that recognizes trafic signs, buildings, other cars and pedestrians, along with other shapes and objects.

5. Cars are replacing your need to focus

We have been waiting for the self-driving cars, and now they are here. But the focus of traditional car labels is to make driving more secure with automation, not replacing the driver completely as Google is doing. A clear trend is that we are seeing cars to be integrated with so many sensors and cameras. This helps them to form a complete image of the surroundings—and help the driver to drive safely. This includes stopping the car when there is an obstacle in front of it, or blocking change of lanes when it’s not safe. Naturally, you can jump out of the car and tell your smartwatch to park the car, and it will find a free spot and take the task.

It was also evident that cars are becoming huge crawlers of information in the cities, that enable real-time information on changes in trafic, available parking space, or drawing a 3D model of the city.

6. More secured wallet with coins

According to a Ericsson ConsumerLab research, 48% of smartphone owners in big cities would prefer to use their phone to pay for goods and services, and 80% believe that smartphone will replace their entire purse by 2020. Also, 56% of smartphone owners would like all their communication to be encrypted.

The trend was obvious on the exhibition floor as well, with many products wrapping solutions around encryption, secure credit card payments, mobile payments, and also combining Bitcoins to the same wallet.

Wocket Smart Wallet showcased a secured credit card with a magnetic strip that can save all your cards, activates with your voice, and even creates new credit card encryption every time you use it. The product looks and feels good, and is already available.

7. Swarms of drones

Aside the GoPro carrying drones, CES introduced a bunch of mini sized drones with embedded functionality. They work in groups and don’t necessarily require drivers. Parrot had put together a pre-programmed show featuring dancing drone swarms with rolling and jumping crawlers.

The Kickstarter backed company Zano had created an extremely lightweight and small drone with embedded camera and sensors. I had a talk with the founder, who told they have also used the drones in swarms to search for missing people in the woods. Another interesting mini drone was Hubsan, that had much more solid feel than many other mini drones, with integrated high quality camera. I was surprised not to find package delivery drones or carrying handles, but apparently we’re seeing drones also to become crawlers of data with packed sensors and cameras.

8. Corporations, meet startups

As browsing through the huge exhibition halls, I found the most interesting outcomes come from partnerships between startups and seasoned corporations.

Many home appliance manufacturers are also tapping to some of the startup gloria through the Works with Nest program. The jewellery designers have also found wearables and partnered with startups, or at least with one, such as Tory Burch’s or Swarovski’s partnership with Misfit.

Lowe’s Innovation Labs are using the latest VR technology to build the Holoroom, a real life room in which you can build your dream kitchen or bedroom interiors and look around which furniture feels the best.

Ergonomic office furniture maker Humanscale teamed up with Tome software, who combines work station sensors with a software to track the time user is sitting vs. standing at work, notifies when it’s a good time to switch position, and compares the results with colleagues on a leaderboard.

The resources, logistics and brand value of big corporations combined with the innovation, rapid development and freshness of startups makes a really nice and compelling combination — so startups and corporations, start to get to know and work with each other!

9. Portable solar power chargers

Solar power cells have become affordable, and the products are also becoming more convenient. The first audiences are clearly treckers and outdoor sports enthusiasts. Goal Zero solar chargers and kits specially for hiking, camping, hunting and other outdoor activities.

The more mainstream portable solar power charger producer Waka Waka has made a nice convenient USB charger that you don’t plug into the wall but leave charging in the sun. With 8 hours of solar exposure you can charge phone battery in 2 hours. The product feels solid, is convenient sized—and works even in the low sun level of Finnish winter. For an occasional portable charger user this is enough without ever remembering to plug it to the wall. Also, it can be good for emergency situations in cars. They have also included buy one, give one model to their business, donating products to rural and poor areas without electricity.

10. Virtual reality and intelligent eyewear

Virtual reality products are getting attention, even though we still haven’t seen many real applications. Now in 2015, the products are ready to host a wide array of good content. Oculus showcased their latest technology and Sasmsung Gear VR is also powered with Oculus technology. Oculus now being owned by Facebook, the open source movement has also a pair of glasses to develop for, the Razor OSVR headset with a price tag of only $200.

With a lower price, down to $8, you can get a headset where you can put your smartphone and use its display and accelerometer with a special app to control your 3D experience. These solutions are enough for very basic videos and 3D games.

Another sidetrack from 3D glasses are the smart glasses, with embedded reality to sports, or professionals in warehouses or fire prevention. These were pretty much still early prototypes, but we should be expecting these to be ready for market in a year or two.

11. Color is the new black in peripherals

Beats probably started the mainstream boom of bringing cool colors to the traditional black and white peripherals market. Now colors seemed to be the new black, as many products are available in bright variety of colors to maximize the personality of the wearer. Polk BOOM is a water resistant portable speaker with a low price tag—and comes in several colors.

One happy surprise was to see the Swedes jump into this market too, with the Stockholm-based Happy Plugs. They are doing the Happy Socks phenomenon to earplugs, with affordable selection of decent quality products in various colors.

12. It’s all about the product

In the Internet of Things, the most prominent products are really very niche targeted, well crafted items that combine a single use with a good user experience and software. Compatibility with other products and platform thinking becomes secondary, because the core functionality is essential in making a hub product. Like Nest, they start with a very specific focus, and only then can become the standard that connects other things at home.

For example, Muse brain sensing headband, Netatmo weather station, or the beautiful wooden Bellabeat pregnancy monitors are all startups that are focusing on building a great user experience for the niche market—and are doing it extremely well.

Putting it all together

Now, 2015 will be the year when the Internet of Things really became mainstream with commoditized wearables, smart home kits, and especially well crafted products that solve niche problems in various areas of life.

Sensors and cameras are becoming more and more common, and the next step will be to create software and cloud services, that are using this data to make meaningful applications. With all these cameras, computing in every item, and our personal data flying around, security and encryption solutions are becoming more vital.

On the business side, it’s easy to think about creating platforms, but essentially it is all about great products that solve one thing well. Only after that they can take the first steps to become platforms. In the following years, we will see the most interesting products coming from partnerships between startups and corporations.

Technology is also becoming more human and soft. The rise of colors, the use of wood in products, and embedded technology makes the physical items cosy. Software is also becoming more automated in the background, only visible when it needs your attention. The future does not look like aluminum anymore, but colorful and warm.