January 2021 -

Smart perfume reflects your mood

And now… smart perfume

Ninu Perfume has combined AI with fragrances. Using a mobile app, you can inform your smart perfume about your day and about how you are feeling, and it “custom blends” a unique fragrance of the day, right in the applicator. The app’s digital assistant, Pierre, helps mix the occasion-specific fragrance and informs you when you are running low and need to reorder. Ninu is made from premium, eco-friendly ingredients and housed in a well-designed case. Input

dis-rup-shun: This is the ultimate internet of things play, as we had breakfast cereal boxes and toasters in the queue for receiving smarts well ahead of perfume bottles, but let this stand as a great symbol for the vastness of this category includes. Making simple pleasures of life more personal and “custom” have merit, as most people want a personal touch, and when we start going out of the house again, this will be a conversation item.

Samsung Bot Handy robot

Samsung showed off, at CES, a one-armed mobile robot that is able to pick up objects, using cameras and intelligence to apply the right force at the right time. The demonstration showed the robot moving dishes from the sink to the dishwasher, pouring a glass of wine, and placing a single flower stem into a small vase. While this device is not likely to reach market in its current state, Samsung is displaying some impressive capabilities which will find their way to market over countless, and likely bumpy attempts to make robots main stream home products. CNET

dis-rup-shun: Specialized robots, such as robotic vacuums, do work and are selling well, but a multi-purpose butler is a long way off. Home tasks can be done very quickly and affordably by efficient-minded homeowners or fair-priced domestic workers. Watching a bulky and expensive robot slowly perform single tasks at low speeds has no place in busy households of multi-taskers. Expect household robots to be at least five years away from being popular items.

Alarm.com offers touchless doorbell

In the age of COVID, and with general heighten awareness about spreading infectious diseases, Alarm.com now offers a touchless smart doorbell. by simply standing in front of the device (or standing on an appropriately labeled doormat), the visitor can simply stand and wait to be spoken to. CNET

dis-rup-shun: Doorbell cameras are a great addition to the home, and will become the standard for any home in coming years, but there is room for improvement. First, if you have much activity in front of your house, motion sensing sets off alarms quite regularly, which can be too frequent. Secondly, the delay time from first ring to activation and engagement with the person outside often takes too long. As these deficiencies are addressed and facial recognition determines what and even who is there, then these products will become far more helpful.

Mobile home theater from Asus

The Asus Latte 1 is a home theater projector and Bluetooth speaker about the size of a large cup of coffee which projects images up to 120 inches in size at 700p. While the price is not yet known, the device offers an easy way to turn most any place into a home theater. Input

dis-rup-shun: Think of the places that you could turn into a movie-watching party: dorm rooms, campouts, hotel rooms, birthday parties, business presentations. If you can recall all of the occasions that you have hurried to a client site to give a presentation and the AV gear won’t cooperate, popping out your own projector to “just start” could be an impressive move. While this is a niche product category, it has potential of becoming a useful business or entertainment tool in coming days.

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

Highlights from Virtual CES

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A new GM reveals the future of transportation

GM, following a year when the electric car upstart, Tesla, became more valuable than all of the Big Three automakers, revealed at CES its path for the future. The company unveiled its new division, BrightDrop, designed to provide logistics companies with an all electric delivery van and an electronic pallet platform. In addition, GM’s Mary Barra unveiled a new electric, flying personal taxi drone, called eVTOL which will be branded Cadillac. CNET

dis-rup-shun: These announcements are bold, as it seems clear that GM, the behemoth of American industrialism that foundered for many of the last thirty years, clearly understands that the future is not about fossil fuels, not about people owning multiple large cars, and not about running all over town to shop. The future is heavy with ecommerce, fractional services, gig-economy, and environmental conservation. GM gets it and is acting accordingly, knowing full well that the business model of the legacy carmaker is a path to certain extinction.

CareClever Cutii Robot

This is a useful robot. The friendly looking screen and speakers are on a small but sturdy pedestal on wheels. Cutii is designed to help seniors, by keeping them informed, tracking their movements, escorting them on walks, and coming to their aid if they fall. Cutii is not designed to open, close, lift and cook, but it does offer communications and visual contact so that a senior can request access to information, entertainment and communications from his or her robotic companion. Wired

dis-rup-shun: With many seniors in near isolation during the pandemic, such a device would likely be comforting, convenient and could offer a great deal of safety — enabling loved ones to see if a senior’s health appears compromised. Of course, any device that helps a senior in case of a fall could be a lifesaver.

Toto Wellness Toilet

Japanese manufacturer Toto displayed a smart toilet that analyzes waste, with every use, and provides feedback to an app regarding how you need to tune your diet, and other health indicators. The device will be expensive when released, but for those really into the quantified self, it will offer regular feedback on health. Wired

dis-rup-shun: For several years, we have seen smart toilets that offer massaging, soothing, water cleansing, and now, health assessments. Given the costs of such technologies, it will be years before builders offer these devices as standards in upscale homes, but with the recent concerns over toilet paper shortages during the pandemic, bidet-featuring smart toilets will remove one more concern from daily lives.

TCL Series 6 TV with 8K

Chinese TV maker TCL continues to wow consumers with high quality televisions at sub-one thousand dollar prices. The Series 6 offers 8K resolution support in an affordable package. Wired

dis-rup-shun: The world is only now beginning to expect content in 4K resolution, and it will be at least a couple of years before a great deal of 8K content is available, but if you are about to invest in a television that you plan to keep for 5 or more years, buying an 8K set is wise.

N95 Electronic Face Mask

Game hardware company Hazel has developed an electronic N95 mask that not only lights up with different colors, features re-usable N95 filters, but cleverly is made of plexiglass that enables people to see facial expressions and read lips. Wired

dis-rup-shun: We hope that masks are not here to stay, but they may be, or may be for those particularly vulnerable or uncomfortable with no distancing. If we are going to wear masks, being able to see people’s mouths and expressions will make interaction with masked people far more comfortable and effective.

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

Robotics are a star of Virtual CES

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New robots for virtual CES

Increasingly popular stars of CES have been robots. This year’s virtual CES will feature a number of robots including: LG’s UV robot that moves around to disinfect surfaces, Moxie — a Japanese robot that is cute and intended to help entertain and educate children, John Deere’s robotic grain harvester, Daesung’s Hive Controller robot that harvests honey without human beekeepers. CNET

dis-rup-shun: Robots have been slow to become mainstream, instead being heavily utilized in factory automation. As we let go of the misconception that robots are multi-purpose, intelligent servants or companions, and apply AI and automation to repetitive tasks, we will see more frequent adoption. Expect more specialized devices, perhaps not previously considered robots, to be the examples of robotic automation — to prove their value by increasing efficiency and performing tasks that humans find difficult or tedious.

2020: An amazing year for tech

It was a rough year for many, and an amazing year for others. The seven top tech companies increased in value by $3.4 trillion. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Tesla and Nvidia. The global pandemic and government investigations have not tarnished the meteoric rise of these companies. Surprisingly strong iPhone sales, Amazon’s rise in online sales, Microsoft’s Teams surge, and the strength of Google and Facebook’s advertising stronghold plus Tesla’s record deliver of electric cars in Q3 set new records. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Imagine what 2020 would have been without the economic engines of the top tech companies. There is little doubt that their dominance makes it difficult for others to compete, but our economy, without the strength and growth of these giants, may have been very bleak. COVID-19, moreover, fueled the growth of many smaller tech companies, including Zoom and Slack, that have also had a significant year.

The Walkcar — a new form of transportation

The Walkcar is a new device from Japanese company, Cocoa Motors. It is the size of a large laptop computer with four wheels. Standing on the composite square device will transport the ride at a maximum speed of 10 mph. At just under $2000, and a size that will fit into a large computer bag, the urban dweller has an alternative to the Onewheel. CNET

dis-rup-shun: If a laptop-looking powered skateboard is called the Walkcar, then are perceptions of transportation changing? How do we define cars? Are new entrants to the workforce counting on Walkcar-like devices to be their transportation of choice, knowing that Uber or fractional rentals of real cars are available for those seldom occasions when more is needed.

Cync by GE Lighting is new smart home line

GE Lighting, purchased last year by smart home device maker Savant, is planning to stay firmly planted in the smart home market. Its C by GE line is changing names to Cync — and will release a new outdoor smart plug and a new app to control it. CNET

dis-rup-shun: GE is a strong consumer brand. The mother company, GE, has sold its brand to many companies, including Jasco that makes a large array of electronics products under the GE brand, and now Savant, owner of GE Lighting, will use the brand to drive affordable smart products into the mass market. Smart light bulbs are a top selling smart home product, and Savant is wise to leverage the popularity of the brand.