What To Expect from CES 2017

CES 2017, will be the 50th annual largest gathering of consumer electronics companies and is sure to be the usual exciting mix of ‘solutions searching for a problem’ and evolutionary updates but little or no real ‘revolution’.

Virtual and Augmented Reality
There’s no question that one of the hottest categories at this year’s show will be in the virtual/augmented reality world.

Gaming has always been a no-brainer for this type of technology, but I’m expecting to see more practical use cases that might bring it into the mainstream.

I’m a bigger believer in the usefulness of augmented reality since you aren’t in a virtual world by yourself and can still interact with others while using the technology (think Pokémon Go or Hyundai’s virtual owner’s manual app).

IOT/The Connected Home
The ‘Internet Of Things’ has been a growing category at the show for years, but this year titans of the industry such as Amazon, Google and Apple are each making a major push to create ecosystems that they hope will become a standard.

The biggest problem for most consumers when it comes to the connected home is that each device seems to need its own app and doesn’t necessarily talk to other devices.  Expect this problem to be addressed by many companies this year so Alexa can talk to your Samsung vacuuming robot next year.

Car Tech
The automotive industry has been on track to turn your car into the largest mobile device you own with new car companies like Faraday Future trying to break into the market.

I expect to see the usual incremental improvements to connected car technology platforms, but the real innovation I expect will be in autonomous car technology.

It’s going to be a while before we can totally leave the driving to our cars, but driver-assist technology is already mainstream and the obvious stepping stone to our driverless future, so it should be in full display this year.

Robotics, AI and Drones
The rise of the robots that go beyond vacuum cleaners and toys should be on display aided by advances in Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Assistants in just about every device we’ll interact with.

Drones capable of carrying heavy payloads and even people are sure to be shown in prototype form as the push to develop commercially viable vehicles will expand the market beyond the mature hobbyist market.

Wearables
This category continues to try to get mass appeal products to market in everything from fitness, healthcare, fashion and tracking of your pets and this year should be no different.

While I don’t expect any real major innovations, we should see some interesting adaptations especially when it comes to healthcare and caregiving.

What We Won’t See
Announcements of big new mobile devices generally now get made at the Mobile World Congress in late February, Apple and Google have their own annual launch events so they’ll be no-shows and don’t expect anything truly compelling to be introduced from the TV manufacturers despite all the buzz you’ll likely hear about ‘HDR’ (High Dynamic Range) technology.