CES 2019 is huge, huge I tell you and its not possible to get around the hectares of displays (4500 companies), let alone to the lavish private suites in hotels often many kilometres out of Las Vegas.
As a guide, there are 31 categories, and all have lots of tech behind them. On top of that, there are dozens of conferences and meetings. No wonder nearly 200,000 attendees from 150 countries go there each year.
Categories
| 3D Printing | Accessibility | Advertising, Marketing, Content and Entertainment | AR/VR and Gaming |
| Artificial Intelligence and Robotics | Audio and Video | Baby Tech | CES Sports Zone |
| Country Pavilions | Design & Source Showcase | Digital Money | Drones |
| Enterprise Solutions | Eureka Park | Family and Kids Tech | Fitness |
| Health and Wellness | High-Tech Retailing | Home Cinema | IoT Infrastructure |
| iProducts | Resilience | Self-Driving Technology | Sleep Tech |
| Smart Cities | Smart Home | Sports Tech | Tourism |
| Vehicle Technology | Wearables | Wireless Devices and Services |
Perhaps the best place to start is the CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honourees. But wait there are 30 categories and multiple winners!
Let’s start with the Best of Innovations from brands we know
- Lenovo’s Yoga Book C930
- LG SL9YG Dolby Atmos sound bar
- LG V40 ThinQ flagship smartphone
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 powerhouse GPU series
- Sony WH-1000XM3 over-the-ear headphones (GG review here)
- The Window TV by Samsung
- KitchenAid Cook Processor
These are all devices we will review soon.
Computer Hardware and Components
- AMD 2nd gen Threadripper CPU
- Acer Swift 5 and 7 2019 notebooks
- Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1, XPS 13
- HP EliteBook x360 1040
- Lenovo Yoga Book C930 (overall winner)
- LG Gram 17 and 2-in-1 notebooks (not sold in Australia)
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 and its 256GB 3DSS DDR4 RDIMM memory
Computer Peripherals
- Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin, Dell 27 USB-C UltraSharp and Dell 49” UltraSharp monitors
- NETGEAR Nighthawk RAX120 AX6000 router and Orbi Tri-band (cable modem version not sold here)
- Samsung CRG49”, Samsung UR59C monitors
Digital imaging
- LG 75” LCD 8K 75SM9900 and LG 88” OLED88Z9
- Nikon COOLPIX P1000
- Samsung Galaxy Note 9
- Samsung Quantum 8K TV processor
Fitness
- Garmin Vivosmart 4
- Samsung Galaxy Watch
Gaming
- Samsung 82” QLED TV
- Samsung CRG9 49” monitor
- Dell Alienware m15/17 notebooks Dell G7 15” laptop
- LG 86” 4K TV 86SM9000
- NVIDIA GeForce RTS 20 series (winner)
- HP Omen HDR gaming monitor and soundbar
Headphones
- Plantronics BackBeat Fit 3100 sports ANC buds
- Jabra Elite 85h over the ear ANC headphones
- Jaybird Tarah Pro (owned by Logitech)
- JBL Endurance Dive and JBL: UA Wireless Pivot sports buds
- Samsung AKG Y500 on-ear headphones
- Sony WH-1000XM3 over the ear ANC headphones (winner)
High-performance Home AV
- Sony Master Series 4K A9F OLED
- Mark Levinson #5805 integrated amp
Home Appliances
- LG HomeBrew and High Capacity washer/heat pump combo
- KitchenAid Cook Processor (winner)
Robotics and drones
- Vector by Anki
- Zuni RoboCar (winner)
Emerging trends
Audio is going 3D and its not all Dolby Atmos.
Sennheiser has its binaural AMEBO, Sony with 360 Reality Audio (basically MPEG-H 3D audio format). Whatever the outcome speakers are going to want to add spatial awareness and that means content needs to have the metadata to enable that.
Read GadgetGuy’s report on AMBEO here
Smart everything
Apple has relented and no longer requires an Apple certified chip in HomeKit devices. So we saw Samsung 2019 TVs adding iTunes and AirPlay 2 compatibility. Sony and LG will follow suit as well.
Lights are exploding – not literally. GadgetGuy has a Nanoleaf Canvas on review, and there are dozens of new Wi-Fi-enabled lights – some of which don’t need a Hub like Philips Hue.
Smoke, C02 and noxious gas detectors (Nest) and home monitoring devices abound.
Robots are still the stuff of Isaac Asimov dreams, but we are getting closer to a companion robot. Sony’s AIBO was there along with Samsung’s Bot Care robot and LGs Cloi.
Read GadgetGuy’s take on voice control smart homes here.
And 8K TV remains a fantasy that we may see in stores by 2025!
Here are all the announcements we covered or search for CES 2019.We tried to limit coverage to those brands/items that will be available in Australia soon.
- Acer
- AMD
- Arlo
- ASUS
- Belkin Foxconn
- Dell
- ECOVACS
- Hisense
- HP
- Intel
- JBL
- Lenovo
- LG
- Qualcomm
- Samsung micro LED
- Samsung Monitors
- Samsung smartphones
- Samsung TV
- Seagate
- Sennheiser
- Sony
And so ends CES 2019 coverage. Back to reality.
