CES ( consumer electronic show) is an annual event held in Las Vegas where device manufacturers present new products and discuss new trends. Product categories vary a lot just depending on what manufacturers want to showcase. And quite a few of the devices shown are like concept cars at auto shows – – they never actually make it to market. But there are always a lot of news stories and fun things to think about, and sometimes some real trends.
In 2014, the hot topic was home automation, but it never took off in terms of sales and new products the way CES implied it would. We’re still waiting for that one.
In 2017, it seemed like the hottest trend was “and now it works with echo!” And that one definitely did describe a trend in the industry. Not only did most of the product shown deliver on something that came to market fairly close to what was on display at the show, but literally hundreds of additional products also added echo integration in 2017. Also, having support from multiple voice assistants, such as something that would work with Google Home and Amazon echo, was another new trend that did materialize in products you could actually buy.
Now 2018 approaches. This thread is for links to news articles and discussion of anything from the CES show. If you think an individual product is worthy of a separate discussion thread, go ahead. This one isn’t meant to supersede any of the others, just to provide a quick place to look for hot news and general trends.
So far most of the analysts are hedging their bets when it comes to predictions about trends, with the exception of “more voice” and “more low-cost security systems.”
Stacy Higginbotham stands out with an interesting prediction (she’s a widely respected home automation industry business analyst who writes for Fortune magazine, among others).
She suggests that the biggest market trend in terms of what will actually be for sale in home automation in 2018 will be downward pricing pressure on individual devices. She thinks blink’s new security system (the entire company was just acquired by Amazon), is a good example. From her blog:
If she’s right, I would expect to see more “starter kit” offerings from major brands at CES as they try to bundle the lower-priced items into something with a decent profit. Nest Secure would be a good example. That way the marketing money can go into the kit/brand, but individual add-ons, which are being sold to existing customers, can be a much lower price. But we will see.
One of the most interesting is the idea of “fog” (low-lying clouds, I guess), which is moving more functionality back into the local system for both security and reliability reasons
SmartThings was once independent of Samsung, the ruination began there. I’ve never owned anything Samsung that didn’t suck out loud. ST has been the only decent Samsung thing I’ve ever owned. But local processing is a big fail on this platform, which is the main thing driving me to look elsewhere. Not that Homey solves that problem.
This looks interesting. Basically an Echo with a camera and z-wave added. Never really pictured Toshiba entering the smart home industry. http://toshiba-smarthome.com/
edit: maybe this wasn’t a CES unveil? its already on sale on Amazon.
Freaking marketing people, out for every dollar they can get.
You don’t need single use range extenders for Z wave, we haven’t since the third generation. Pretty much every Z wave product sold in the US is operating at the legal Max already. Any repeater, including a light switch or a plug-in pocket socket, will extend your network as much as the single use Devices.
Plus half the people who buy these don’t even know they need to run a Z wave repair in order to get their other devices to use them.
They think they’re like Wi-Fi signal boosters, and They’re not.
It’s just taking advantage of people, and I really don’t like it.
So is this just supposed to serve the purpose as a nightlight that also acts as a Z-Wave repeater, with no ability to plug another device into? Range extender If you do a search for their other products (shutoff valve, leak sensor, etc.), you will see that they have tagged or embedded the term range extender into everything. Lmao, the Mouser company. Sorry. Can’t help it.
Of course the toilet is $8000 plus installation, so way out of my budget, but there are very few hands free options for toilet flushing for residential installations that work reliably. It would be nice to have some more choices.
You can even use your voice to flush the high-end Numi toilet.
And before somebody makes a joke, I’m quadriparetic. There are those of us who could honestly use stuff like this.
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If you do a search for their other products (shutoff valve, leak sensor, etc.), you will see that they have tagged or embedded the term range extender into everything. Lmao, the Mouser company. Sorry. Can’t help it.
