Unless you are a PR professional, media member, work in the tech sector, or are a complete electronics nut, you may not have realized that it not only is 2016, but CES is this week.
We are on the eve of the year's biggest technology conference, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Though its star has faded in recent years, CES can still be useful to predict the trends in consumer technology for the year ahead (and sometimes, for two years ahead). Many products announced at CES never make it farther than the show floor, but ideas such as virtual reality, high-resolution television, and autonomous vehicles all received major pushes at CES.
This year, we expect to see a lot of news from the usual CES suspects: TV makers, automotive companies, wearable device hawkers, and even VR companies. But the best part of CES is always what we don't expect to see, whether that's an on-stage meltdown during a press conference or a radically different form of entertainment powered by technology.
TVs will be familiar
TVs always seem to dominate the show floor at CES, but don't expect many radically new ideas this year. There'll be lots of 4K TVs (and maybe a handful of 8K models). And many more models than last time will offer HDR, Dolby Vision, and other fancy visual things that enhance the experience beyond just resolution. Samsung's making their TVs the center of the smart home / IoT, and presumably other companies have had the same idea. What sort of presence will Android TV have? Same goes for Roku's TV OS. Will anyone besides LG put their weight behind OLED?
TVs! There'll be lots of them. The TV industry is constantly trying to find ways to entice people to upgrade their old sets, and CES is its biggest sales pitch of the year.
Smart home stuff will be everywhere
CES is the one time of year it’s easy to believe in the dream of the smart home. And fortunately, recent years have made it look closer and closer to reality.
Apple and Google are starting to cut through the mess and let everything in our homes talk together. This year, with their help, expect to see connectivity creep into new areas of the home and for existing smart home products to get even more integrated.
That dream is still a long ways out, but one of the big things to look for this year is how Samsung, Intel, and major backers are making progress: Can they help these products get connected? Can they ensure that everything will speak the same language in 10 years? Don't expect the long-awaited Internet of Things to appear overnight, but do expect to see the first tangible pieces of its infrastructure.
All kinds of wearables will be on display
Outside of CES, 2015 was a pretty big year for wearables — the Apple Watch came to market, Fitbit went public (and revealed it actually makes money), apparel makers started putting more tech directly into clothing, and VR headsets became an actual thing. But many of these products still suffer from technological and practical constraints, and it's unlikely that CES 2016 will be the event that sets the definitive tone for the wearables market in the upcoming year.
This year at the big show we're expecting a lot of "me-too" wearables — commodity wristbands, smartwatches from legacy brands, and next-generation trackers with iterative design improvements. Sensors will pop up in everything from sports equipment to sneakers to bras to dresses. "Hearables" will be a theme this year, which basically means that headphone makers have realized they can add sensors to the things we wear all the time anyway and charge a mark-up. The best part of all this might just be the commoditization: wearable tech is becoming more accessible. But just like last year, we might be waiting until the spring — or well beyond — before we see whether real innovation in wearables is going to take shape this year.
Cars will once again be a big deal
It has become an annual tradition to jokingly call CES an "auto show," but this year, it’s absolutely no joke: major automakers will be making legitimately groundbreaking announcements here, and dozens of smaller companies will be filling in the gaps. Expect General Motors to show the production version of its Chevy Bolt, which will likely become the first reasonably priced electric car with a practical amount of range (200-plus miles) to hit dealerships. Volkswagen has been teasing a new electric concept for the show, and it might just be a new Microbus — one of the company’s most iconic models. And then there’s Ford, which is rumored to be teaming up with Google to make autonomous cars.
And that’s not all. BMW is working on a new system for controlling the next generation of in-car user interfaces called AirTouch, and it could debut on a new i8 Spyder concept. (And speaking of i8s, Rinspeed will have a weird, highly modified i8 at the show with a built-in drone.) Audi always does fun things at CES, too, and they’ll once again have a substantial presence.
The craziest part about all of this? One of the biggest actual auto shows of the year, NAIAS, is the very next week.
Headphones may see their first big update in years
For all the competitive hype surrounding music streaming in recent times, the hardware with which we listen to music has remained largely unchanged. Apple's takeover of Beats has so far focused on developing an all-encompassing music service, not the next great set of headphones. Companies like Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, and V-Moda continue to refine their products and expand the choice of wireless options, but the world of personal audio seems in need of disruption.
Apple's Lightning connector — standard across modern iPods, iPhones, and iPads — could be the catalyst for a dramatic change. There are already Lightning headphones from Philips and Audeze, whose advantage over conventional wired cans is in sending a digital signal to an integrated amp and converter inside the headphones. This allows companies to fine-tune the sound processing specifically for each pair of headphones. It won't be something that everyone needs, but a new wave of Lightning-connected headphones opens up the possibility for a more portable audiophile sound experience — one that doesn't depend on custom phone designs or extra peripherals.
Phones, cameras, tablets, laptops, and drones will be there, too
CES is never a big show for the other major consumer electronics categories, but they all will be there in some form or another. The big smartphone makers outside of Apple will hold their major announcements for later in the year, but expect to see news from smaller players such as Alcatel Onetouch, ZTE, and Huawei (which is huge globally, but still small in the US). Same goes for the camera makers: most will hold their announcements for Photokina later this year, but we expect to see at least something from one of the big players.
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