After seeing hundreds of gadgets over three days on the CES 2024 show floor, The Verge smart home reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy rounded up the tech that caught her eye. She goes through them room-by-room, showing how these smart home technologies can make life more convenient, comfortable, and energy efficient.
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00:00 Welcome to the home of the future.
00:02 At CES in Las Vegas this week, I took a look on the show floor for the technologies that are coming to our homes to make them smarter, safer and more efficient.
00:12 After days of wandering the halls of CES and looking at hundreds of gadgets, I'm excited to show you which ones stood out the most.
00:19 Let's take it room by room, starting with the kitchen.
00:27 There's a revolution on the show floor at CES in insulation.
00:32 This JennAir Smart Fridge is equipped with the world's thinnest refrigeration insulation panels.
00:39 Gone are the bulky polyurethane panels and in their place is a powder blend of 95% slim-tech insulation that can make the fridge 50% more efficient
00:51 or get you 25% more capacity, so more space to store your fancy water.
00:57 This is really fancy water.
00:59 Better insulation also means fewer compression cycles, so your fridge is less noisy and it may last longer.
01:06 These under-cabinet smart lights are first of their kind and game-changing for your kitchen lighting.
01:12 The SYNC under-cabinet lights are full-color and tunable white light LEDs that can fit flush under your cabinets and can be plugged in or hard-wired.
01:22 They have on-device controllers and work with wireless or wired GE SYNC smart switches as well as voice control,
01:29 so you can take your kitchen from dim to bright or even blue in an instant.
01:34 Kola's new bidet can turn your toilet smart.
01:38 The Pure Wash can wash your bits with voice control using Alexa and Google.
01:43 And it has hands-free operation thanks to motion sensor, plus a remote control and a heated seat to keep your tush warm.
01:52 We'll be back in a second with some robots. Here's Andrew with a message from our sponsor.
01:57 At this year's CES, we're seeing AI integrated into all types of devices, from small sensors in an electric vehicle to smart home devices found in your bathroom.
02:06 And with artificial intelligence set to take center stage in the coming years, ARM is building the future of computing for this AI-accelerated future.
02:13 You may not be familiar with ARM, but it's highly likely you already have a gadget with ARM inside, since about 70% of the world's population is using ARM-based products.
02:20 From startups to large enterprises, the ARM Compute Platform combines common software standards and foundational hardware building blocks for chips and phones, sensors, cars, and even supercomputers,
02:32 making the future more intelligent and seamless than ever before.
02:35 Now, ARM doesn't influence our editorial videos, but they do partner with us to make videos like this possible on our channel.
02:41 All right, let's get back to CES.
02:43 Matic is a new robot vacuum that's more WALL-E than Roomba.
02:47 It moves around more naturally than most robot vacuums, and it's kind of cute.
02:52 Matic has a slew of interesting features being developed, including gesture control and dirt detection, so it can go out and look for messes.
03:02 It can suck up wet messes, as well as vacuum and mop.
03:08 We vacuumed up the spilled milk, then we tackled some raisin bran, so now we've got breakfast in the bag.
03:16 This is all great.
03:19 And it doesn't require an internet connection, so that map of your home stays in your home.
03:24 There were dozens of new smart locks at CES, including a new Matter-over-Thread fingerprint lock from UTECH,
03:31 and a retrofit smart lock that works with HomeKey from Acara, but one stood out from the crowd.
03:37 The Lockly Visage is a Wi-Fi smart lock with facial recognition built in.
03:42 Just walk up, and your door unlocks. Excellent for when your hands are full.
03:46 It uses binocular radar and on-device processing, so your face stays in your lock and not in the cloud.
03:53 While I've been at CES this week, a storm has cut power to my house twice, and there's another one on the way.
03:59 EcoFlow's new Scalable Solar Generator is an excellent solution for taking control of your home's power.
04:05 It's also my pick for Best Smart Home Gadget at CES this year.
04:10 The Delta Pro Ultra Kit can store enough power to run your home for two days or up to a month, if you scale up the system.
04:17 It's also portable, so you can take it to power your RV for the weekend.
04:22 It's easy for an electrician to install, and it works with EcoFlow's new Smart Home Panel 2
04:27 to automatically manage which loads use the battery to keep you running for longer.
04:31 Artificial intelligence was a big theme on the show floor this week, and Samsung and LG both put AI into robots.
04:40 Bawli is a rolling robot from Samsung that takes the smart display mobile.
04:46 The voice-controlled Home Assistant has two projectors built in, and using LiDAR,
04:51 can figure out where you are and where best to project a display when you need it.
04:55 Working out, it can project your instructor on the ceiling during crunches.
05:00 Cooking, it can beam your recipes right above the stove.
05:04 It's an intriguing solution to the problem of smart home interfaces.
05:08 And, as Bawli was first demoed at CES in 2020, there's a slim chance it will actually arrive in our home.
05:16 The same cannot be said, however, for LG's AI agent robot.
05:22 Overall, the Smart Home at CES 2024 felt more iterative than innovative, with no big breakthrough categories.
05:35 And that's a good thing. I saw good products get even better.
05:39 Smart locks adding Thread, an Apple Home key, and costs coming down across the board.
05:46 And most excitingly, I saw a big shift towards simplicity and choice.
05:51 This is in large part due to two things, matter and generative AI.
05:57 While matter has had a slightly bumpy start, at CES I saw a slew of announcements around new products,
06:04 from smart locks and lights to robot vacuums, meaning there are more devices that now just work with everything.
06:11 But I was really interested to see how manufacturers are using generative AI to make setting up and using smart home devices easier.
06:20 Combined, I think this is what the Smart Home really needs.
06:24 More choice and fewer barriers to entry.
06:27 Making it easier for everyone to enjoy the benefits of living in the home of the future, today.
06:34 Woo! It beeped at me.
06:38 And the lights turned red.
06:42 [laughs]