While we’re used to highlighting the best parts of CES, we wanted to chat through the contenders that didn’t make the shortlist, but definitely made an impact.
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00:00We did the best of CES but now we're gonna do the rest of CES. There's a lot of things we didn't
00:04cover in the other video so we are going out to dinner tonight and I asked everyone if they
00:10could share some of the stuff they saw this week. So let's go inside, sit down and eat.
00:21Thank you everyone for sitting at the same table as me.
00:26Well first I want to talk about the big trends at CES all through the kind of beats that you
00:33were covering. What was the stuff that you saw all over the place at CES this year? Who wants to go
00:40first? Smart glasses. That's what I saw. I spent so much time with smart glasses. There were so
00:48many smart glasses that I saw smart glasses that somehow she didn't see because there were so many
00:54she couldn't get to them all. Yeah. It's still AI on stuff. It's like put AI on the things.
01:02You were saying this too Chris. A lot of AI on TVs. TVs have AI chatbots now. LG has
01:11CoPilot for Microsoft. Some Samsung TVs do. Like AI is great for picture modes or sound quality
01:18or like asking the TV to like make dialogue clear. That's great but like chatbots and like
01:23planning your day and like planning a vacation in your TV. Like who the hell
01:28like who's asking for any of that? You know it's like yeah we have phones, we have laptops. I've
01:33had access to like a remote that I could talk to to request something for years and I don't think
01:38I've done it once. Yeah they all they have AI buttons on the remotes now. Both LG and Samsung
01:44have an AI button on the remote. Two things. Robots with arms and legs and UWB and smart locks.
01:54Yes robots with arms and legs. Vacuums with robots. Robot vacuums with arms and legs. Sorry.
02:00Robot vacuums with arms. We had two of those and then we had legs. Robot vacuums are becoming
02:05multitasking household robots and then smart locks are getting UWB which is ultra wideband
02:12so that you can have hands-free access. You just walk up to your door and your door unlocks.
02:17That was everywhere. Smart locks, like there were so many smart locks at the show.
02:23Robot vacuums and smart locks kind of took over. I'm sorry why do the robot vacuums have arms and legs?
02:30Why do they have legs? So to get over steps and transitions. So if you've spent much time with
02:36robot vacuums they get trapped on things all the time and so with the little legs they only get
02:42it gets it up about six centimeters like two and a half inches but it can get over a high
02:47transition or a big rock. That sounds cute now. Are they legs or are they feet? No no yeah.
02:53So basically the idea behind the extra appendages is to make sure the robot cleans all of your house
02:59and then one actually with an arm can attach tools to the arm so that because robots big
03:06problem is that they're circular or square but they're large they can't get into every section
03:11of your home so with the arm with a little brush they can reach out and like scrub your floor.
03:17They're doing a lot more to the sole purpose of making sure to clean all of the areas of your
03:23home but eventually I think we're going to see them start to do like one thing you could do with
03:28an arm for example is open a door so say you forgot to leave the door open to your bedroom
03:34but you want your bedroom cleaned and it's on the mat you should clean the bedroom so the arm
03:39could reach up open the door. I don't like this part. Am I hearing useful AI? Is this useful AI?
03:52I would say one of the places that I have seen the most use for AI is the smart home and people
03:59have an instinctive reaction that seems like anti-AI but actually AI and smart home makes it
04:04so much easier to interact with your home you don't have to have precise language using AI
04:09in a robot to understand this is something you should clean like popcorn this is something you
04:14shouldn't clean pet poop I understand but it's getting stuffed in everything but actually we've
04:20had AI in the smart home for a long time. We've had AI in everything for a long time it's just
04:24what we're calling AI. But now it's getting better like it's getting more capable and that's
04:29it that's exciting. Bollie is coming this year. Why do we want the ball? I like if you want to
04:41ponder the orb at home. Yes I liked the dog let's go back to the dog. I like the QCL robot that was
04:48on a ball. You did? I loved it. Oh it's terrifying. No you can take it out of its little cradle
04:54Oh you can? I just thought it was really creepy looking. It just has real big eyes. See I don't
05:02really need my robots to have eyes. I want my robots to have tasks. That's the interesting
05:08thing right because in the west we have this idea of robots as being like task masters
05:13but like when I was in Asia and like living in Japan they view robots as friends so that's why
05:18you have stuff like the Marumi where it's like a little buddy and it's like it doesn't do anything
05:22like it doesn't do anything. It shows up and is like I'm cute. Yeah. It just looks at you.
05:29Someone pounds it to that edge of growl and someone like tries to touch your stuff.
05:45Antonio it's your first CES this year. First CES yay.
05:51Still alive. How was it so far? My first in-person CES it's cool to see everything
05:57and not be just abstract. I can't imagine there are many moments where you get to see this much
06:02stuff all at once. Talk to as many people as you can all at once whether it's you know your
06:08contacts that are going to be sending review units from companies or you know peers from
06:15other publications who it's you know sometimes just fun to shoot the shit with but yeah no it's
06:21actually been a really cool experience and I'm just really tired but you know the mix of Red Bull
06:28and now beer really helps. Yeah and Sean you've been working with Antonio because you kind of
06:33overlap in a lot of your interests. You both saw Lenovo's rollable laptop. We did. And the Lenovo
06:42Legion Go S. Not a great name but it's fun. Lenovo was the star of our show.
06:48Yeah it was. What about the the big Acer handheld? So I checked out the Acer
06:54the god I always mess up the name the Nitro Blaze 11. It's a chunk of a gaming handheld.
07:03It was actually lighter than you think it's gonna be. It's like two point I don't know maybe three
07:09pounds to two point something pounds. A Steam Deck is like one point something pounds though you know
07:14it's it's like you pick it up and you're like oh that's a little lighter than you expect because
07:17it is big. It feels like you're basically gonna game on a small surfboard but it looks like it
07:22could eat the Steam Deck but it doesn't seem too overbearing actually but then it also feels a
07:26little maybe cheap. I also picked up an 11 inch handheld at CES. It was called the Sunday Dragon.
07:34It had a 3D screen. Oh god. And it did not feel light for its size. Okay. I'm glad your one did.
07:41Yeah because no I mean it could be promising but I don't know it's we'll have to see. It's like
07:46I mostly use my Steam Deck at home on my couch so there is something I'm sure other people are
07:50kind of like that too and I'm sure there's something to be said about hey I'm just I'm not
07:54going to go anywhere with this. I do want the biggest screen that I can tolerate in my hands
07:59but I don't know we'll have to see how it really shakes out. It's still it's running Windows.
08:04I don't know if Acer's launcher seemed all that you know intuitive or special. I think what both
08:09of us have found out and other companies are saying this now. We've heard this from executives
08:13at Sony. We've heard this at executives from AMD. They've said that a lot of people are using these
08:19handhelds on their couch while their all their kids and significant other are watching something
08:25else that they don't want to watch. The whole reason the PlayStation Portal exists and it's
08:28not a flop apparently. Exactly. Who has the most CS's under their belt? That's gotta be Sean.
08:42I only think it's like nine or something like that. Not that many. Maybe Chris?
08:47Uh 2012 through now. Missing the one. I'm at six. Six? I'm surprised. That puts me in third. I think
08:59I'm at eight or nine. Going around there. This is my seventh. Okay. Alison? My sixth but I took
09:08an 11 year break. The streak was over. So how does it compare amongst the past ones? It's
09:16exactly the same except there's like more of everything. Like I went to the sphere and it's
09:22like this is a big screen. That's what happens at CES. You look at a big screen. Like yeah it's the
09:28cutting edge of technology but yeah it's the same thing. This one feels slightly above average in
09:34terms of like how busy it is but it's it the show is just so big. It's spread across so much of the
09:40Las Vegas strip and convention centers this year. There's extra like convention centers,
09:45extra hotel people are at. Last year was also like this but even more so because people were
09:51coming off the pandemic and they were like my gosh we've got to meet each other again. Let's go big.
09:55I gotta say there was a moment that I had that felt like a throwback to really old CES. I was
10:02trying to get to an appointment and there was a booth that was like boxing themed and there was
10:09like a boxing ring holding a karaoke contest while there was like somewhat like a punching
10:15bag that was like connected next to it and booth babes. I haven't seen booth babes. Was there always
10:22karaoke at CES? I saw a lot more karaoke machines this year than I usually do. Ones with like a boom
10:29box with the mics built in. I saw that too. They were doing karaoke. That was like 10 feet away
10:34from the boxing karaoke and I was just like what is happening? Maybe it's like it's like is that
10:41like a side like low-key evolution from like the party speaker space that we sometimes talk about
10:46like that's like like somehow that that space is always booming and we have no idea because it's
10:50like some weird niche like and yeah. Will.i.am has a new boom box this year. Oh fantastic. And the
10:56LD booth. The card number LD to make the X boom I think. There's a party speaker, there are
11:03booth speakers. Yeah I asked LG how long is this partnership and they like wouldn't say.
11:09I'm sure next year he'll be somewhere else. Basically and it ends on Friday I think.
11:14What was your favorite vaporware? Mine was the Omnia mirror which was supposed to be like you
11:18step on the mirror and it tells you everything and it was it sure was a mirror. What did it do?
11:24Nothing. It just had a pre-run demo on it. I was like you really went in on concept.
11:30My favorite vaporware was the LG ultrafine 6k monitor. It's gorgeous. It's a 32 inch 6k display.
11:38No bezels. Beautiful design but it wasn't at the show despite winning a CES innovation award.
11:52Okay so we did a best of CES but I want to know the underrated ones. The b-list I like to call
11:59the b-side of CES. So I went into Intel's innovation showcase and I saw this wild handheld
12:08thing from Quanta. So Quanta is an ODM. They make the gadgets but they don't like sell them under
12:16their brand. This is like stuff that gets white labeled stuff that gets turned by other companies
12:21like your Acer, Asus or companies like that into actual products someday and they'll just mock up
12:26something super cool that works and then they help companies actually build them later on.
12:31So Quanta had this device which it looked like a handheld at first with gigantic metal grips.
12:39So heavy. Lit up with RGB lights and the center looked like a tablet. I was like that looks like
12:47a tablet. So I picked up the tablet. It's like this is very light. I flipped it over and there
12:52were these three giant connectors on the back but it was mostly hollow like what what's this
12:58and above it on a shelf was a laptop with a weird like pouch in the front. It turns out the pouch
13:05is a module. It's a modular computer and so you take your laptop's processor and everything out
13:10of it and you stick it into this tablet and then you stick the tablet into your handheld or you
13:15stick the module into your all-in-one PC and it's this all-in-one lunar-like thing. The laptop version
13:21also has like a motorized hinge so the screen will like automatically come up when you press
13:26a button or talk to it and it'll just open its own lid and it's supposed to do like voice commands and
13:33all this ridiculous stuff that they dreamt up. Oh it also has a wireless charger for your phone
13:37built into the touchpad area. Stuff like that you know. Simple. Simple. So I tested like six
13:47smart rings earlier this summer and the one that lost was the Circular Ring Slim. I f***ing hated
13:53it. This hasn't failed on every single level. I feel like they might have redeemed themselves
13:59at CES with their Circular Ring 2. It's adding EKGs for AFib detection and basically when I talked
14:06to their founder I went through a laundry list of everything they did wrong and he's like yeah
14:10and we're fixing all of those things and one of the big problems I had with it was when I put it
14:16on it felt like 3D printed plastic. The original one. Yeah. And I put it on and it was like oh you
14:22look like the other ones now. Good job guys. So I love a redemption story. Seeing a bad product
14:30become a decent one. You also saw a very expensive smart ring. I did. I saw a very very expensive
14:39smart ring. How expensive? Well the Ultra Human Rare. It's a desert themed collection of 18 karat
14:49gold and PT950 platinum smart ring. So it comes in my favorite names Desert Rose, Dune, and Desert
14:58Snow. The 18 karat gold ones are $1,900. Oh my gosh. The platinum one is $2,200. So when I went
15:06to see it on the floor I put all three on and I was like this is a $6,000 smart ring
15:13collection on my fingers and I posted the picture and everyone's like actually we like the nails
15:18more. These are $10 nails. Alice do you have a B-side? What about the next paper? Oh yeah this is
15:28a $200 phone made by TCL and it's like a regular ass phone but then you there's one button on the
15:36side it's like a slider and you push it and it goes into max ink mode which is not actually e-ink
15:43it's like just monochrome and it sort of does this animation like you're going back in time or
15:49something and it like drops your refresh rate and you have you pretend you're using a books palma
15:56or something and it's also kind of a focus mode so it's like you are allowed seven apps don't get
16:02any more than that and I'm like that's great. Does it work? Does it look half good? It looks
16:08fine. Yeah it looks fine. It's just like it's not gonna look good. As a phone reviewer is this
16:15exactly what you want in life? A phone where you don't have to review anything on it? Yeah yeah
16:19it's that phone reviewer off button where I'm like and I'm done. I want one on every phone.
16:26Jen you have a lot of being inside? Yeah I mean there there's a lot of smart home stuff there I
16:32mean CES has transitioned from a tv show to a smart home show. Right. I would say I was expecting
16:39to see more of this but I didn't see as much as I wanted but I liked what I saw which was
16:45control interfaces for the smart home so there were a Kara came with some great touchscreen
16:52smart home controllers that wire into your existing switches so you don't have to like
16:57it's an easier install it's still wiring but it's not like you're gonna have to like
17:03run a wire down your wall and plug it in somewhere it's something that's integrated
17:07into your house and you are able to control devices like lights, locks, video doorbell,
17:13intercoms. I thought those were really interesting. Kara has one that is a little twist style which I
17:19love. I love the physical combination of the physical and digital works really well in the
17:24smart home if it's all digital there's you know more failure points and also it's harder for
17:29people to understand. One of the smart home interfaces I saw that I really enjoyed was the
17:34flick duo which is a button controller it has two buttons on it you can hang it on the wall
17:40you can also take it off the wall and got button control and gesture control so I got to try this
17:46out at pep prom and so you press it to turn the light on but then if I press it and swipe like a
17:52wand it changes the colors of the light. I feel like Harry Potter. Lumioso. Oh no that actually
18:03would be the light thing why am I saying Wingardium Lightiosa. The other feature has built in is
18:10ball detection so it can be used for like eating in place this is a button that's like this big
18:14oh wow it's got so many functions I think you can program I think off the top of my head it was like
18:1930 different scenes different types of integrations. The downside with buttons as much as I love
18:25I love a good button we all love a good button on the first button of the month. When you can do 30
18:32things with one button is remembering what the button does all those 30 things. Where do you put
18:38it? So it has a little magnet and you just put on the wall when you're done with it okay yeah it's
18:44great it's a fun little gadget and it works with matter which means you can control anything
18:47that's possible. Here we go. My b-side is I got to I still have to write this up sorry
18:54sorry Jake but is Audio Scenic. Audio Scenic is this like kind of startup that does audio
19:03their tech is actually in Dell's new monitor the 32-inch QD OLED that they announced
19:09for CES but basically it's in the monitor it has like five speakers in the base of it
19:16and it's got it uses like a dedicated camera or dedicated sensor I should say to track your head
19:23essentially and target with beamforming to like target your ears and the whole idea is that it
19:29gives you spatial audio without anything extra needed. It can basically like
19:36translate you know like stereo to kind of like at least be a little bit
19:40back and forth side to side and it can also actually translate like 5.1 and 7.1 to just
19:46full-on spatial but if it's like if it's recorded binaural then you know it's going to be the best
19:52quality possible where you can even maybe feel like almost it's almost behind you you don't feel
19:56quite quite behind you it's like the the hardest part. I've heard a lot of virtual surround sound
20:02and I was impressed by this. Animal camera. Animal camera. Yes. I loved the tiny animal
20:12spying camera. Instead of spying on lowlifes you can spy on your wildlife.
20:19Wow. That's good. Did you make that one? I did. That's so good. That should be their line.
20:25They're going to use it. They're going to take that from you. First the phone toaster not this.
20:29It's a tiny little camera it's like this big. It's called the petal and it's part of a new platform
20:35from the bird buddy folks so if you remember the bird feeder with the AI camera in it that's been
20:40very popular and everyone buys for their mother for Mother's Day. This is from them and it is
20:46it has AI and it has a chatbot so you know it fits really well in CES but I was talking to the founder
20:53and he said what I'm trying to do is use AI so you can talk to nature and and it was it was
21:00it's a really interesting concept so you put this little camera outside and it's it looks like it's
21:05a flower and the petal is the charging is the battery for the camera and then it has another
21:12leaf which is a solar panel so in theory it should stay charged for he said up to a year.
21:17It monitors wildlife that comes to your garden and it'll speak to you so it'll say like oh the
21:24butterfly came today and then you can say how many times did the butterfly visit this week and
21:30it'll tell you how many times and it'll say this is what you could do to encourage butterflies to
21:34come and visit more so it's sort of helping you to communicate with nature and encourage nature
21:39to come into your garden. Security cameras you know the kind of concept is always you know
21:44keep the the danger out it's scary you know you need a security camera to keep you safe
21:50whereas this is a camera that's inviting something fun and interesting and I think it's a great very
21:56good concept. I want to hear about this LG portable TV what is this LG portable TV?
22:02Stand by me too. Practically it's a wearable. It actually is almost a wearable. Yes I like it.
22:11It's got a touch screen they had there's like a folding like case for it you can use it like a
22:16tablet uh you can there's the old pedestal that you can still like wheel it around like the first
22:21one it's cool I don't know. Neely loves it I'm like yeah I don't know. I love what LG is doing
22:28with all these kind of weird concepts like the lamp that's also a projector doing the lamp that's
22:33also a garden. A grow lamp and a speaker. LG is getting wild I like it. They're good with the
22:43concept stuff nothing ever actually appears though like these products never come to market.
22:49You can buy the suitcase TVs. The LG cat tower with the air purifier built in. Oh we all want
22:54that with all the cat owners. And weigh your cat and tell you how long it's been sleeping so you
22:58can sleep shame him.
23:07Okay to wrap up I wanted to bring in Editor-in-Chief Neely Patel. How was the coverage at CES?
23:15So an amazing thing about The Verge at CES now is all of these people are amazing and CES
23:22responds to them and watching the gravity of this bizarre trade show. Bender and Gentooey in
23:29particular is wild. Like you are a smart home executive and you haven't found this room in?
23:34Fucked up. That's just reality. There's so much here and it's Vegas and it's nuts that just
23:43picking out what's important what isn't just requires you to have done it and to know what
23:48is a Verge story and like the most important thing is I think everybody knows what a Verge
23:53story is now. Spider routers. Spider routers. Right like that thing where you can put weird spider
24:00routers and like now Steam is just gonna colonize every handheld and also Mark Zuckerberg is doing
24:06weird racist stuff like all together and be like that's The Verge and everyone gets it. It's like
24:11amazing. The script is amazing and really I'm just their mascot and I've just been drinking
24:16since I believe since I believe Monday. Cheers!