The best smart home gadgets of CES 2017

Standing in the middle of a show floor at CES, a woman was explaining to me the pains of being a new mother. Every few hours, you’re faced with a loud, noise machine going at your breasts for milk, which require your full attention and both hands to hold everything in place. She’s not talking about the baby itself. Nope — she’s talking about a traditional breast pump machine.

The Willow smart breast pump system is designed to alleviate that pain by being hands-free, tubeless, and relatively un-noisy. It was difficult to test the latter factor in a large event space, but the Willow device did look less intimidating than the average pump. The teardrop-shaped machine rests on the mother’s breasts under her bra, and collects milk in a pouch that’s stored inside the device. One bag holds four ounces of milk. For safety reasons, the bags are not reusable — the system comes with 24 bags to start but you’ll need to buy replacements that cost 50 cents each.

The wireless router has earned a bit of a reputation in recent years as a playground. It’s where certain tech companies, those typically with outlandish ideas and poor taste, experiment with just how gaudy and ridiculous they can make the simple act of handling internet traffic over a home network. These monstrosities tend to manifest as multi-arm, arachnid-like beasts that feel more at home in a deep sea fishing slideshow than anywhere remotely close to your computer setup.

Case in point: Asus’ new gaming-focused Rapture, shown off at CES yesterday. Set aside for a moment the audacity to conflate a router with the second coming of Christ, and you still have a device that insults the eyes with its presence. This router doesn’t look much different than the drone-like D-Link or TP-Link models that get shown off every year at CES. The Rapture, however, has the unfortunate quality of being marketed toward gamers, whose tastes tech companies seem to think are synonymous with the various flavors of Mountain Dew.

Your fridge is old and boring. Maybe it came with your apartment, or maybe you inherited it from a Craigslist rando, but one thing is certain: you’re a tech person. You deserve a smart fridge. The FridgeCam, which is a literal camera designed to sit in your fridge, will make your old fridge smart.

The camera employs custom food recognition software that can reportedly track what’s in your fridge, suggest recipes, and save you from wasting food. You just have to scan the food’s barcode on the FridgeCam’s app, which connects over Wi-Fi, whenever you put something inside. The fridge then will either already know how long that food item can last before going bad, or will ask you to set an expiration date. For foods without barcodes, like fruit and vegetables, you just have to manually add them. The app will let you know when that food is getting close to expiring and notify you.

While Amazon and Google are battling for voice assistant dominance in the home, they've mostly neglected other countries. Now Baidu, in partnership with AiNemo, is building the Xiaoyu Zaijia ("Little Fish") family robot, which, on paper, has most of Alexa's talents along with a big screen, a camera, and a touch of robotics. If you couldn't guess, it's for China.

The robot responds to the "xiaoyu xiaoyu" wake word, and turns its head to look at whoever is talking. I don't speak Chinese, so I couldn't talk to it beyond waking it up, but the voice commands were consistently working for the Chinese PR people who were showing me the robot, even in the noisy environment of the show floor. They set timers, made video calls, and asked "show me a hammerhead shark" (demonstrating the value of a screen for kids). You can order meals, groceries, and medicine with your voice, but only if your face is recognized as an authorized adult — no hacking, kids!

The gadget world is full of companies that don’t so much sell a labor-saving product as they do a fantasy of organization and efficiency. Vorwerk, maker of the Thermomix, is one such company. Thermomix is technically a food processor. But it’s really meant to be an all-in-one kitchen, complete with recipe book — cooking entire meals in the space of a couple cubic feet. This is not something I will ever need. But I would probably feel really clever if I learned to use it.

The fully assembled Thermomix is a tower of pots and cooking peripherals. Its base is large, white, and rounded — not something from an industrial kitchen, but a soft-focus utopian future. In the middle, there’s space for a tall metal pot with a blade, which works either for blending or gentle stirring. Inside, you can fit a relatively small steaming colander, and above, there’s a large pot for additional steaming, with a roasting tray and lid at the very top. There are also a few extra touches, like a 100-ml measuring cup and a silicone spatula that turns into a handle for the small steamer.

Simplehuman is a company known for high-end home goods, including its deluxe trash cans (yes, those are a thing). And at CES 2017, the company showed off its most technological garbage bin yet: a voice-activated trash can that can open and close through verbal commands. 

The initial version of the voice-activated garbage can will be available in two capacities: a smaller $180 garbage-only version, and a more expensive but larger $240 model that has both trash and recycling receptacles. The cans open up to requests of "Open can" or “Open sesame,” and can be verbally instructed to close or stay open as well. Both cans also offer a motion sensor similar to Simplehuman's other trash cans. The first round of voice-activated garbage cans should be out in March.

Netgear has been filling out its line of Arlo home security cameras over the past few months, and today it's introducing what is unquestionably the best one yet: a baby monitor with bunny ears. Or cat ears. Or a little Dalmatian outfit.

It's called the Arlo Baby, and it's basically just a fancier version of the existing Arlo security cameras that's been reworked a little to do a better job of watching a baby than watching your yard for weirdos. Also, it has ears.

One of the biggest and most biting criticism of modern tech is the industry’s excessive push to solve trivial problems. Nowhere is this theme more apparent than among the sea of forgettable gadgets at CES, itself a trade show that revels in the opulence of Las Vegas and the often hollow promise of our techno-enabled future. Occasionally, there is a device that breaks the mold. Leka, a smart toy from a French startup of the same name, is a tiny spherical robot not unlike Star Wars’ BB-8. Instead of dazzling us with cheap tricks, Leka has a purpose: to help children with autism and other developmental disabilities better learn and communicate with others.

The device, shown off yesterday at CES, is aimed at schools and therapy institutions that focus on autism and other conditions. It’s designed to either be controlled by a caregiver or put into an autonomous state so children of any ages — and even adults with more severe disabilities — can overcome social barriers to learn and progress at their own pace. Because these children often have trouble interacting with others, taking social cues, and learning in traditional environments, toys like Leka help to act as a intermediary. In other words, it’s a robot friend that a child with autism can better develop a bond with than an imposing adult.

In the age of the ubiquitous smartphone, it’s only a matter of time before every object — no matter how trivial or trite — gets connected to the internet. That brings us to Catspad, an automated smart cat feeder that allows a feline friend to eat dry food and drink clean water for up to one month without any direct physical intervention from a human owner. The device, from a French startup of the same name, is going live on Kickstarter later this week, and we got an early glimpse of a prototype here at CES this evening.

By connecting to Wi-Fi via the Catspad mobile app, the dome-shaped food and water dispenser can be automated during certain times of the day. So you can arrange food deliveries by weight — sensors in the food bowl detect how much kibble is present — and monitor how much clean, filtered water is left over after each day. Catspad holds up to 60 ounces of dry food, and about 8 liters of water. The company says that should be enough for one cat to live autonomously for up to one month, so long as you’ve set up the food-delivery schedule and keep tabs on the water supply.

The HiMirror Plus is a new smart mirror that’ll scan your face and tell you what’s wrong with it. It looks for wrinkles, red spots, pores, fine lines, and brightness levels. The mirror’s a harsh critic, yes, but the idea is that you’ll track your skin as you change beauty products, so you’ll know what’s working and what’s not. Also, you can watch yourself slowly age! That’s fun. The mirror rates each part of your skin on a scale of 100 with 100 representing skin perfection

I tried out the new HiMirror Plus, which is the second version of this device, at CES this week. My skin is generally good. I don’t break out much and on the whole I don’t need to wear much makeup, so my ratings were all within the 90s, not to brag or anything. Although the device did tell me I have wrinkles around my eyes, which was news to me! I did have makeup on, though, so I kind of cheated the mirror. Ideally, my hair would have been pulled back and I’d have a bare face.

Every year, the marketing arm of the tech industry huddles around a simmering cauldron of PR gumbo and fishes out a single word or phrase that will embody the hope — and hype — of the latest generation of gadgets. Previous examples have ranged from the charmingly vague (the “Internet of Things”) to the idiotic (the use of “smart” as a catch-all modifier) and the merely hopeful (“3D TVs” were doomed from the start really.) In 2017, though, you should prepare for the over-use of the latest favorite: artificial intelligence.

It’s clear that AI and machine learning had an impressive 2016. There were advances in features for consumers, like image and speech recognition, but also significant research achievements — including a milestone victory for machine over man played out via ancient board game Go. But these successes have created an AI halo effect that gives a reflected shine to any tech company that invokes the concept of artificial intelligence. This, in turn, can lead to breathless coverage that inflates the significance of what is often, at heart, just data analytics, or a Wi-Fi connection.

LG showed off a cadre of consumer robots today. Its LG Hub is similar to Amazon’s Alexa, a stationary unit that is controlled by your voice. In fact, it’s powered by the same software running on Alexa. But it has more personality, adding an animated face and swiveling to look at whoever it’s talking to. It looks and feels a lot like the Jibo robot that was unveiled two years ago.

Beyond playing music and looking up the weather, it also acts a command and control unit for a number of different LG appliances. At its presentation onstage at CES this morning, LG showed the Hub bot preheating a connected oven, turning on your robotic vacuum, and controlling your autonomous lawnmower. There is a large version of the Hub which is your primary point of interaction, but LG is also selling mini versions of the Hub that, like the Amazon Dot, can be placed in different room around your house to enable voice control from anywhere.

LG is putting all the software in its new fridge. At CES today, it announced a connected “smart refrigerator” that includes both the webOS operating system and integration with Amazon’s Alexa assistant. This means that the fridge can do everything from automatically adjust its power settings to order groceries with your voice.

The smart fridge has a 29-inch front touchscreen with something called Instaview, a “door in door” that can turn translucent to show you the contents of your fridge. LG also touts its ability to look up recipes, play music, check the weather, and shop online. Instead of sticky notes, users can leave notes and tags on the front using webOS, and a “fresh tracker” can keep track of food expiration dates. Third-party integration with Alexa also means you can use voice commands instead of the touchscreen.

Vivint, a smart home service provider, is today announcing Sky, an artificial intelligence package for its smart home system. The company says Sky uses machine learning algorithms and the data collected by the various smart home devices installed, such as thermostats and cameras, to adapt to the home owner’s routine and save energy when no one is home. It will be provided to all of Vivint’s subscribers included with their regular subscription service.

Vivint’s service is a bit different than the do-it-yourself smart home devices that have become popular over the past few years. It provides a complete smart home system, including sensors, devices, and integrations with Nest and Amazon’s Echo, for a starting price of $99 then a monthly subscription fee of $50 to $70 depending on how many devices are installed. The fee covers installation and support of the system. Vivint says that this kind of approach to the smart home mitigates the issues and headaches with compatibility seen by ones purchased and installed yourself.

In 2013’s Her, retro teddy bear Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an artificial intelligence that lives in his ear. At CES in 2017, tech company Kolibree is asking, “what if you fell in love with your toothbrush instead?”

Well, sort of. The company has unveiled its latest product, the Ara, which it claims is the “first toothbrush with embedded AI.” This doesn’t mean, of course, that some sultry-voiced operating system will whisper sweet nothings to you while you’re brushing your teeth (they’d be pretty muffled anyway), but a bunch of sensors in the brush will monitor how long you use it each day and which areas of your mouth you you hit. This data will be analyzed in the toothbrush itself by Kolibree’s “patented deep learning algorithms,” and recommendations on how to up your brushing game will be sent to your phone or emailed to you once a week. Functionally, it’s nearly identical to Kolibree’s first smart toothbrush introduced in 2014.

Bluemint Labs' Bixi, a device that lets you add gesture control to smartphones and smart home gadgets, is expected to ship in March after finishing a Kickstarter campaign last year. But Bluemint Labs isn't stopping there, and has already announced the successor — Bixi 2.0 — at CES 2017.

The Bixi 2.0 brings several new additions to the gesture control puck, including an E Ink display for showing temperature, time, and notifications. It’ll also integrate Amazon's Alexa Voice Service. The whole thing comes with a Wi-Fi connected hub to let you control smart home devices without requiring a connected phone.

Sevenhugs' Smart Remote is a universal remote that takes a very different spin on the concept than the ones we've seen so far. The company has shown up at CES before with an earlier prototype of the device, and ran a successful Kickstarter to fund production, but this year showed off the final hardware of the remote that will ship in September.

Instead of static physical buttons, the Smart Remote has a touchscreen that can change and adapt to whatever device you're using. The idea is simple: just point the Smart Remote at a device and it’ll show you the correct custom control for it. So, pointing it at a television will surface TV controls, while pointing at your lamp may bring up a slider for a Philips Hue bulb. And if two objects are too close together, the Smart Remote offers an easy toggle to select the right one. 

Computers have gotten more and more sophisticated at reading visual and audio cues, but they’ve lagged behind in one major, albeit quirky, area: scent. As Reuters explained in a piece last year, smell sensors work must do fundamentally different work than cameras or microphones, and the challenge has defeated more than one company. One of the remaining contenders is a group called Aryballe Technologies, whose “optical nose” NeOse is on show at this year’s CES.

The device above is the second NeOse prototype, the NeOse Pro. When owners point a small tube on one end at an odor, it uses a combination of chemical sensors and an optical system to identify different scent molecules and test them against a database of known smells. In 15 to 30 seconds, an iPhone app spits out a profile of the smell and — if it successfully matches it — an identification. NeOse has a general database, and companies can also record their own scents and then test against them. Aryballe isn’t the first company to make a scent detector, but it touts its portability and flexibility as unique benefits.

Nothing’s better than a warm shower to start your morning or end the day (your life, you do you) but many times we find ourselves sitting cold in the bathroom while waiting for the water to heat up. Moen’s new smart shower system wants to fix this by adding the ability to remotely start the shower from a smartphone so you can pre-heat the water temperature.

The U shower system lets you connect up to four water outlets (regular shower head, body spray, tub faucet, or overhead rain shower) and comes with a digital control panel. It connects to an app via Wi-Fi and lets you program up to 12 settings, such as a cold shower for post-workouts or a warm one for wintry nights. You can get really specific, too: the water temperature can be set precisely between 60 to 120 degrees.

The Internet of Things has brought wireless connectivity to billions of devices that previously suffered from being dumb (or, not connected). It has also created an excuse for companies to make everything and anything "smart."

The hair brush is one example of this. Nokia-owned Withings, L’Oreal’s innovation lab and Kerastase, a high-end L’Oreal hair product brand, have just unveiled a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth-equipped hair brush that’s supposed to show you data on your hair-brushing habits and, in theory help you take better care of your hair.

The GeniCan is a smart accessory for converting your boring, analog garbage can into an internet-connected smart trash can of the future. Look, smart devices are going to enter every facet of your house anyway, and when you actually think about it, a smart garbage kind of makes sense.

The GeniCan automatically adds things you throw out to a shared shopping list, making it easy to figure out what you need to buy the next time you're in a grocery store. That list is then available in an accompanying app, which also has the same barcode scanning and manual item adding options as the GeniCan itself. 

Whirlpool is showcasing new washers, dryers, refrigerators, and ovens at CES this week, and their most interesting feature is the ability to be controlled by Amazon’s Alexa.

Through the Echo, Echo Dot, or other Alexa-enabled devices, owners will be able to control some of the core functions of these new appliances. The most useful commands are for Whirlpool’s ovens, which will let owners set cooking times and temperatures by voice and ask for updates on how much time is remaining.

Toymaker Mattel has built a digital home assistant designed to look after young children and babies. According to reports from Fast Company and Bloomberg, the product, named Aristotle, is a $300 Wi-Fi Bluetooth speaker that looks and functions just like Amazon’s Echo and is scheduled to hit stores this June.

There are two AI “personalities” inside Aristotle. The first is an eponymous female assistant who claims to be descended from the Greek philosopher himself, and will read bedtime stories to children, play games like “guess the animal sound,” and answer their questions. The second personality is Amazon’s Alexa, which adults can use to operate the device as well as shop for baby products like diapers and formula.

Mayfield Robotics, a Bosch start-up, is trying to make the home robot more personality-driven and lovable with the introduction of its Kuri robot today, a project that’s been in the works for nearly two years.

We’re all likely familiar with the home robots that hit the press circuit hard, like Pepper and Jibo. But we haven’t seen any of them break into mainstream use. At this point, the Amazon Echo and Google Home are our primary home robots. They play music on command, answer our bizarre questions, and turn our smart appliances on and off. Kuri differs from these prior robots because Mayfield stressed the importance of a personality during the design process, which comes through in Kuri’s expressive eyes and demeanor.