It’s fairly easy to choose the best new gadgets
launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week. Most
lists – and there are many – highlight the LG roll-up TV, the Samsung modular
TV, the Royole foldable phone, the impossible burger, and the walking car.
But what about the voice assisted bed, the smart baby
dining table, the self-driving suitcase and the robot that does nothing? In
their current renditions, they sum up what is not only bad about technology,
but how technology for its own sake quickly leads us down the rabbit hole of
waste and futility.
The following pick of the worst of CES may well be a
thinly veneered attempt at mockery, but it is also intended as a caution
against getting caught up in hype and justification of pointless technology.
1. DUX voice-assisted bed
The single most useless product launched at CES this year must surely be a bed with Alexa voice control built in. No, not to control the bed itself, but to manage the smart home features with which Alexa and other smart speakers are associated. Or that any smartphone with Siri or Google Assistant could handle. Swedish luxury bedmaker DUX thinks it’s a good idea to manage smart lights, TV, security and air conditioning through the bed itself. Just don’t say Alexa’s “wake word” in your sleep.
2. Smart Baby Dining Table
Ironically, the runner-up comes from a brand that also makes smart beds: China’s 37 Degree Smart Home. Self-described as “the world’s first smart furniture brand that is transforming technology into furniture”, it outdid itself with a Smart Baby Dining Table. This isa baby feeding table with a removable dining chair that contains a weight detector and adjustable camera, to make children’s weight and temperature visible to parents via the brand’s app. Score one for hands-off parenting.
Click here to read about smart diapers, self-driving suitcases, laundry folders, and bad robot companions.
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