Thoughts on My First CES
I made my first trip to CES this year. It was an overwhelming, thrilling experience, but one that also revealed trends and market intelligence in a way I was not expecting. The conference has been covered to death in the media, but I wanted to surface a few observations that perhaps did not make it through the noise.
Drones are a commodity…
… but the software that makes them work is not yet.
It seems every hardware company that could build and exhibit a drone at CES was doing so. From the big players like Qualcomm to specialized manufacturers like Parrot and DJI to tiny companies Extreme Fliers Microdrone, everyone had a cage where one or more drones showed off their acrobatic skills. Even the FAA was there. With that much competition, it’s clear there’s excitement about the possibilities of drone uses. But the sheer volume of drone manufacturers out there leads me to believe there’s going to be a rapid race to drop prices to win against a sea of other indistinguishable drones.
On the other hand, the software to make drones successful is still in its infancy and there are opportunities for growth there.
VR and AR have arrived…
… but some companies are missing that memo in favor of strange niche products
Virtual and augmented reality got their place in the sun at this year’s CES. The major chip manufacturers showed off the power of their chips (with Intel’s RealSense being the one that most impressed me), head mounted display (HMD) manufacturers like Oculus and Sony boasted epic lines for their demos, camera manufacturers showed off their market-ready 360 degree cameras, and the list goes on. HMD’s and games are the sexy thing at the beginning of this market, but I had the most fun playing with the Marxent Labs team that brought to life Lowes’ Holoroom, a space for designing your remodeling projects, like a new kitchen or bathroom. These everyday applications where someone with a real design challenge can create their space and then step into it in VR is what will help the technology cross the chasm.
What I found bizarre were the headsets that weren’t 360 or augmented reality but rather put 2D content in front of your face in an immersive way. I understand why that would be a useful thing to have on an airplane, but if I could have a headset that did both that and gave me the opportunity to experience true 360 or virtual reality content, why wouldn’t I spend my headset budget on that instead?
IoT and the smart home lives on…
… but the killer application hasn’t hit yet
It felt like every device on show was somehow connected to the cloud. Fridge that tells you when you need to buy milk? Check. Lightbulbs that respond to presence in a room? Check. Over 900 exhibitors had an internet connected device, making them far too numerous to summarize. What I took away instead was a feeling of too much choice, too little coordination, and too little real value from these connected things. If I have a fridge from GE, a Nest thermostat, and a set of Zuli smart-plugs, can all of those things work together to create the smart-home experience I want? Maybe pairs of those devices can, but at the moment they can’t all work together, and I certainly don’t want separate apps for all of them on my phone.
I’m looking forward to putting more CES’s under my belt in the future. Not only were there amazing products to see, but it forced me to think about the where technology can take us and whether or not it should take us there.
