CES 2021 — Virtual but not viral
A couple of years ago I considered how ironic it was that this high-tech trade show still required all of us to gather in one place rather than just tuning into some crazy VR experience. This year has shown the live event makes all of the difference.
Throughout the year I kept an eye on the CES 2021 event page on its CTA home. It was around the time hotel booking would normally be opening up that there was an update that CES would be a hybrid event — I raised my eyebrow, as even by late summer of 2020 it seemed clear that there would not be anywhere in the world ready to host hundreds of thousands of attendees, exhibitors and venue workers by this month, January of 2021. Then came the survey — will you even attend, they asked? No, definitely not, I responded. It seems that was a common response as it wasn’t much longer after that the announcement was made that the normal techno pilgrimage to the desert was not to be, it would go all digital.
My immediate reaction was simultaneously relief and grief, and not for entirely selfish reasons. The relief was knowing that no one was going to have to face that all to difficult decision to put their health on the line for a trade show (and any further increase in cases that surely would result around the world), and the other was grief for the thousands of small players and start-ups that would miss their opportunity to hawk their wares in Eureka Park and the impact from the economic vacuum for the businesses of Vegas. CES’s rituals would also largely evaporate for 2021.
It’s usually when I wrap up my shopping and meal planning for the end of year holidays that I begin to get excited about heading to Vegas — being in a different place, lights twinkling, the crowd bustling, the energy of partiers mixed among the panicked demo-givers, exhausted booth workers and people like me — kids in a city-size candy store, psyched for the four days of marathon walking and sensory overload!
The Experience
It’s that sensory overload which was missing from this year’s event. Video consumption overload, maybe, and endless mouse clicking — the experience was just not there. The programming was dramatically lighter. This was a good year to have press credentials as you not only got early and better access to certain content but were targeted by startups and other companies who didn’t want to foot the cost of exhibiting; several of the products I saw featured on our favorite tech-zines were not to be found in the CES exhibitor directory when I sought more information.
As expected when everyone is producing from home, the quality of audio and video varied a bit, but given you could see up close and personal instead of from eight rows back in a dimly lit and crowded hall, after waiting on line for an hour, it was an upgrade.
The 1,959 exhibitors that paid to be part of the official CES directory — less than half of the 2020 CES count of 4,400. I was disappointed that the directory was essentially just a filterable set of logo tiles that you could click for more info. Some created semi-virtual experiences like Philips and Intel, where you could enter various homes or businesses to see product highlights and view experience stories. Several companies teamed up with artists like the Black Pumas (Verizon), Bille Eilish (iHeart Radio with HighFidelityXR) and Cold War Kids (Panasonic) to show off immersive virtual entertainment experiences.
Unlike walking the show floor, you had to click through to see what was there before you could move on if you weren’t interested, rather than breezing by. There may be several clicks, in fact, before you get to anything interesting. According to DailyDOOH, #CES2020 was used in 710,321 tweets during the show where as #CES2021 yielded less than half of that. While there were a few interesting announcements, nothing stood out as going viral, as far as I could tell anyway. Here are a collection of themes that I noted in my few days of exploration:
CES of the Pandemic
It was clear this was the CES of a pandemic. There were numerous entries for masks, air analyzers, UV disinfectors of all sizes and scale. This includes return-to-office readiness.
Health
Health is always a big category at CES. The case was made in 2020 for speeding up products and services for telehealth and remote health monitoring and imaging. According to the CTA’s Tech Trends to Watch talk, this jump equated to a rise from $365M to $632M in shipment revenues from 2019 to 2020. I include a less exciting but great use case for robotics: nurse-time-freeing and distancing solution for emptying the hospital bed tray.
If it is emotional support that we need (and we all do), once more our robotic friends are here to help. Particularly great for homes that cannot house a traditional pet companion, these are cozy or entertaining options.
Easing our Earth
Knowing that our environment hasn’t put decline on hold for the pandemic, sustainability continues to notch-up efficient homes and smarter ways to leverage renewable resources. Samsung highlighted a number of initiatives including options for upscaling old Galaxy phones with new purposes, a coalition 50L, highlighted by P&G at CES, which will try to reduce the amount of water used by homes and the Holy Grail project which will water mark plastics to be scanned and processed more effectively (also highlighted by P&G).
Tech with Personal Purpose
An app-for-that may never be exhausted and we can all be glad in the cases of helping those with a need. Epsy connections patients, caregivers and doctors to work with those managing epilepsy. Each year the progress in functionality of smart prosthetics also blow me away.
It’s a Consumer Tech Show After All
Perhaps multi-tasking working, home schooling, dependent caring people would like more domestic help — the robots continue to try to lend a hand in the kitchen. Albicchiere will store your wine in a shape-adjusting bag and chill it at the perfect temperature for the exact bottle you open and keep it fresh for months longer. Who lets wine wait that long, I’m not sure, but perhaps it would be nice for treasured bottles you want to make last. There are various meal cookers and robots to help cook. Your BotHandy from Samsung could help you serve wine the traditional way. The Coldsnap product is an instant individual frozen treat magic box — just load your favorite flavor pack and wait 90 seconds!
Of course, there were explorations in smaller, cooler VR and smart glasses, and bigger flexible displays. I also definitely look forward to seeing Samsung’s gorgeous microLED display in person.
There were of course also the perennial showcases of new phones, smart home components including appliances, baths, toilets and mirrors.
Two newer concepts I liked were the portable motion sensing alarm, that could be attached to a bag or dropped in a drawer, and sleek smart containers to hold valuables at home or on the go which only unlock with authenticated blue tooth (you can put your weed in there!).
Retail
When we are able to return in person to in-person shopping, stores with thousands of SKUs might benefit from a try-on experience like the one provided by Samsung C-Lab’s FLUX Planet which features real-life avatar creation through 3D scanning and a content creation solution.
Or, perhaps you have all of the clothes you need or love online shopping, but wish it were easier to match outfits? Why not digitize your closet with this solution from fash\on:
Only time will tell if by this time next year the world is ready for hundreds of thousands of bodies to collide in the pursuit of tech immersion. There were pros and cons of this years event, hopefully the pros will carry forward with future event designs and if it must go virtual once more, I hope there will be a richer experience to satiate we addicts until it is possible. One thing is for sure, as with any number of big events we all are looking forward to again in the future, I am sure the next Vegas CES will be the biggest part in history.
