We come from all nations and angles at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. All gathered in one spot to be inspired about the latest in tech. You cannot help but be overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all; 3,600 exhibitors, 160,000 attendees and over 2.2 million square metres displaying the 20,000 new product announcements.
The theme this year has been the evolution of products rather than being wowed with anything ‘new’. Sensors, processing power, extended battery life, lighter, sharper, sleeker, integration, connected and personalisation being the buzzwords of the days.
SENSORS, SENSORS, SENSORS
Sensors are being placed on anything and everything, allowing us to lead a data enhanced life. The data being collected allows greater personalisation and control, we can control the habits around us. Personalisation of technology for consumer is allowing us to take back our lives. Monitoring the food we put in our bodies, our health and wellness, home and passions.
MonBaby launched a smart baby monitor that monitors your child’s breathing levels, position and movement sending the information back to your smartphone. Adidas is coming out with a sensor enhanced soccer ball that has an accompanying smartphone app. This new technology starts to bring pro tech sports to the all soccer enthusiast improving your skills and game.
CONNECTED HOME
Building the optimal Jetson home is now possible through appliances, lighting, sound, heating, cooling, security all being automated and monitored to the your lifestyle. Seamless integration and the interoperability between devices allows us to create our own home ecosystem. Devices communicate and optimise themselves to how you live your life improving efficiency and energy production. Sengled Snap has a built in Wi-Fi booster and learns when you are in and out of your rooms adjusting the lighting accordingly.
CONNECTED CARS
A growing area at CES was the programming in cars - manufacturers launching or partnering with software technology that offers everything from real-time geo-location messaging, to self-driving cars. BMW launched remote valet, a self-parking car that seeks out parking spaces, parks itself and when you are ready it will come back to you. All controlled via a smart watch.
Audi and Mercedes both unveiled self-driving cars. The Mercedes is fully automated, battery powered and expels no carbon emissions. The car learns the environment and adapts itself to suit the conditions.
WEARABLES
Watches, wrist bands and clothing all monitoring you and now your pet’s movements, location, sun exposure and habits. Feeding data back to both you and your doctor on your health, fitness and wellness.
Child Angel is bracelet sensor you put on your child tracking and alerting you where your child is and if they have wondered out of a parameter you’ve set for them.
Gym watch measures all your movements, number of reps you perform, weight, stride, the motion you take and plays back your how well you performed did the exercise giving improvements.
Motion power, a wearable wrist band not only monitors your movements it replaces the need for batteries by generating energy from your movements. Allowing you to power other devices with your own energy... Creating a future where we can self-generate our own power!
IMAGE CAPTURING
The sophistication and advancement in our ability to take a selfie is endless, it’s all around enhancing our user experience and capturing all aspects of our lives. AirDog, a 3D drone company, has partnered with GoPro to create a product that follows and films all your activities. Controlled by a bracelet it makes you the star of your film. Panano’s 360 camera creates a picture through its 36 in-built camera’s.
AGLOVE is designed to capture and store your exact body measurements perfect for online shopping increasing the take-up of online buying of clothing and reducing the amount of returns.
VIRTUAL REALITY
3D printing is one of the fastest growing sectors of the market. New hand-held scanners allow you to print versions of yourself or other objects all through taking a 3D scan of your face. EStar Takee 1 unveiled the first smartphone with holographic eye tracking capability.
Fove is where eye tracking meets virtual reality enhancing the ability to those who are physically challenged. It allows you to engage via eye tracking to complete tasks that you were not able to do before.
SCREENS
This year TV isn’t the main star, there isn’t much new or motivating in this space - it’s more evolution than revolution. Devices have become more bendable, flexible and ultra-thin with interfaces improving. Multi-screening is the rage with increased sophistication and connection between devices on multiple platforms. Growth of tablets is down with with smartphones getting larger and laptops becoming compact and lightweight. Smartphones are still the data centre acting as the storage/access point for wearables, smart homes and cars. Powering our screens has been solved by StoreBot with its game changing product that recharges devices in 30 seconds. With more technology in our lives we require we depend on having the increased power to activate them all.
DATA
Data has become the new digital currency. The proliferation of data creates for us as marketer’s, new platforms for advertising to consumers in this hyper-targeted world. We have a new canvas with increased access and availability to consumer information, this opens up new channels for distribution and ultimately new revenue opportunities. Our consumers now demand experiences that are personal, relevant and available 24/7. It’s about how we take advantage of the new digital tools and platforms to reach consumers and how we measure success with these new variables. A lot of panel discussion focused on the need for new rules and regulations to manage, store, and protect our personal information.
CES demonstrated the strong alliance between art and science. How our lives are increasingly networked and connected. For new born babies today they'll only know a life of being monitored with all vital information saved and easily accessed. For consumers, until we are in a position to build our own integrated ecosystem and have a single device that combines multiple features and functions; we will have to deal with wearing, holding, using multiple devices - one to fetch your car, one to monitor your health another to film you and the other to self-power yourself.
Brands playing in this hyper connected world will need to carefully engineer and plan how they'll use this constant flow of data into the warehouse. How they distil, segment and serve up real time messaging to consumer on the various platforms that enhance consumer experience and not hinder it, will be vital for success. Brands will need to select carefully where they play and show up in people’s lives.
Vanessa Nicol, head of Telstra, OMD
For more opinions:
CES: It's as relevant as Cannes and SXSW to marketers but are we paying attention?
Facebook: what marketers need to know in 2015
ADMA CEO talks content, real-time & skills shortages in 2015