CES is almost upon us. With the promise of even more sophisticated and connected gadgets that aim to improve every aspect of our lives, bleeding edge technology set to invade our homes and immerse us in worlds unimaginable, and transportation we only need to climb into that'll whisk us away to wherever we want, it's easy to get excited about the future.
But, casting a brief eye over what's to be expected, you can already sense that the majority of tech press is all aboard the hype train before its even left the station.
Virtual and Augmented Reality will be everywhere this year at CES, but what are the uses outside of the gaming community and the industrial sector. Pretty limited. Exciting and immersive as it may be, wearing a headset is still a pretty much behind-closed-doors pastime and has the potential to be the 3DTV disaster from previous years because the average consumer doesn't see a need for it. In fact, VR gaming is still a niche appeal, and wearing a headset actually removes any social context of being in the room with your friends while playing. Augmented Reality right now is so infant and immature a market, and the technology is at least 5 years away from being something productive and useful too. Medical, engineering, gaming/ entertainment, manufacturing, military; these are all fairly well known use cases that will be at the forefront of adoption, but the fact remains that these technologies are still confined to a headset, and therefore carry a limited number of uses for mainstream use. And are still way off the price point for consumers, not only as a wearable technology but also as a technology that helps produce content itself. While virtual and augmented reality in general points to a future where humans no longer interface physically the same way with the environment around them in the above scenarios they all have to overcome is not only technological hurdles (tethered, battery life, connectivity, development platforms, lack of content), but the same hurdles that ultimately killed Google Glass the first time around; limited novelty and social stigma.
Smart and connected devices will be everywhere at CES, but again the question of actual value still hangs over every object being presented. Calorie counting fitness trackers, connected home appliances, smart toasters and water bottles...apathy is rife because the current trend by companies is to “stick a chip in it” in order to connect it to the internet, without any real value to the consumer. In fact, the only ones getting excited by the Internet of Things are the vendors. In the UK, 47% of consumers didn’t want more technology in their lives at this point in time, and 45% think owning so many devices just means another thing to worry about when something goes wrong. We've already seen devices suffering outages (British Gas Hive) or pestering consumers with firmware updates that knock out interoperability with existing devices in the home (Philips Hue).
Samsung is revealing at CES its line of televisions will be part of its SmartHub initiative.
Samsung Electronics announced that its entire 2016 Smart TV line-up will be Internet of Things (IoT) ready and connected with the SmartThings platform. SmartThings is an open platform that allows users to connect, manage and control smart devices and IoT services.
Among the 2016 Smart TVs, all Samsung’s 2016 SUHD TVs will apply IoT hub technology, allowing the TV itself to act as the controller for the entire smart home.
Why. Why would you want to control anything in your home from your TV ? Technology is supposed to improve our lives and wellbeing, not tie us to the couch just to switch on the lights in the bedroom. Remember the humans in Wall-E ?...Companies are developing simple mobile apps as the interface and gateway for a smart and connected home, Samsung wants us to sit in front of the box instead.
All hype. Zero value.
Finally, the other major trend expected at CES is the autonomous and connected car. Its true that this is going to revolutionise how we view transportation in the future, but the industry isn't ready for it by any means. If you fully relinquish to a driverless car AI for example, and an accident occurs, who is at fault ? And is insurance even needed anymore ? Why bother with a telematics device in the car for personalised insurance if the car is going to do all the driving ? When Tesla finally push the autonomy update to its customers, will insurance companies be ready ? No.
Again, the technology showcase at CES will be pointing to advanced and intelligent driving systems to take people from A-B but for the average consumer this won't be in their hands in 2016, and the regulations that will govern mainstream adoption are still some way off globally. The technology is exciting, the reality far more mundane.
And behind each of these major trends, which many will forget even exist because of the shiny, shiny objects, is the data that is generated and needed to provide the real value. With billions of devices and humans all interacting, sharing and processing data between each other what we have is essentially a living informational network, or a Living Web that spans the planet. Every device will have the processing capability for complex analysis and extrapolation of the information being received and sent. And this means that the future lies in creating a human experience tied to this; how humans can interface, interact and exchange information with their devices in a seamless fashion without having to rely on fixed portals we know today like apps and websites. Will we see anything like this at CES this year or in the immediate future, who knows.
What we will see this year is smart and AI-based assistants, every imaginable device connected to the world of the Internet Of Things, startups, established companies and household names at CES 2016, and while I am playing Devil's Advocate in this post on purpose it's for a reason.
I'll be there at CES. I'll be looking for the stories behind the hype, the gems that actually provide real value, and calling out those that don't.
If you're a startup, vendor, software developer or manufacturer with something to share at CES and want to convince me, get in touch via LinkedIn or Twitter.
