Although CES formally opens today, press and analysts have already endured a day and a half of press conferences and mini-exhibitions. While CES will include almost every consumer product under the sun, there are themes and trends that emerge every year as the industry shifts around new technologies, business models, and consumer trends. As a result, these “press days” provide us a preview of what to expect at CES and some clear trends are quickly emerging.
The first trend is the maturation of the IoT market with more complete smart home solutions. As an example, smoke detector company First Alert is demonstrating a complete line of smart home products that include a baby monitor that can detect respiration, a smoke/carbon monoxide detector that is Alexa enabled, a home health monitor, and a thermostat that is on the Google platform. In fact, home health monitors, devices that monitor the air quality in your home, seem to be popular this year. Even industrial IoT is maturing. STMicroelectronics has a model of a completely automated manufacturing floor and TV maker Hisense highlighted its fully automated facilities during its press conference.
First Alert Baby Monitor (Source: TIRIAS Research)
The one IoT application receiving greater attention this year is connected clothing, including shirts, shoes, and even underwear, which makes for rather awkward booth demo. The clothing trend is focused on fitness and is a natural transition from the bulky systems we have seen in the past because as we have indicated, consumer IoT needs to be fashionable or invisible. Unfortunately, many consumer IoT solutions, particularly smart watches and fitness bands, are still failing on the fashion front.
Smart Clothing (Source: TIRIAS Research)
Remote healthcare solutions are also maturing. We have already seen several solutions that seek to integrate a complete health monitoring system into a single platform. This usually includes, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, ECG, and even blood glucose solutions. The most complete solution in the pre-CES events was the Connect platform from Bewell. Bewell’s control device even included a cellular modem to both store and communicate the patient vitals.
Bewell Connect (Source: TIRIAS Research)
The other obvious trend is automotive. CES has become as much an automotive show as a consumer electronics show with announcements of new technologies, cars, and even car companies. In addition, the demonstrations include the latest in automotive technology, including fully autonomous vehicles. This year at CES, electric vehicles and autonomous driving continue to be the rage.
Chrysler Portal (Source: TIRIAS Research)
An emerging trend and a popular theme at this year’s CES is the digital assistant. While Google Now, Siri, and Cortana has been popular on smartphones and computers for several years, the success of Amazon’s Echo and the availability of the Alexa platform to developers has sparked the imagination of what is possible with voice control and natural language processing. These new cloud-linked digital assistants are coming in all shapes and sizes from the Echo knock-offs like the Lenovo Smart Assistant to Robots like the Kuri from Bosch. The digital assistant is coming of age.
The other, and unexpected, trend at the 2017 CES is the emergence of Amazon’s Alexa as the leading artificial intelligence (AI) natural language processing platform. We have already seen at least two dozen applications touting the use of Alexa. Everything from the First Alert smoke alarm to the latest Huawei flagship Mate 9 smartphone are leveraging Alexa as the personal assistant technology. Alexa has rapidly risen to the top for developers and in combination with other Amazon services appears to be set to be the clear market leader. The rise of Alexa also marks the rise of AI as a key trend as CES. Everything from digital assistants to the autonomous vehicles technology highlighted in the NVIDA keynote indicates AI as a critical technology for all electronic platforms going forward.
With thousands of new product announcements at CES, it is impossible to cover all of them in the depth they deserve, but the trends give us some insight on the focus of the industry. Look for more information of some of the announcements and trends as CES progresses.
– The author and members of the TIRIAS Research staff do not hold equity positions in any of the companies mentioned. TIRIAS Research tracks and consults for companies throughout the electronics ecosystem from semiconductors to systems and sensors to the cloud.
Jim McGregor Principal Analyst at TIRIAS Research E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @TekStrategist
