CES 2013: The Good, the bad and the ugly

In my previous blog post about CES I wrote about a number of journalists who claimed that this year’s CES didn’t deliver anything new.To refute their point about a lack of interesting products, I’ve chosen four - two good, one bad and one ugly.They might not all be revolutionary but if they aren’t innovative, I don’t know what is.

The Good

LG Smart Appliances

Emerging from years of novel concepts including a fridge texting you to get more milk, LG has announced a real range of ‘smart devices’ including ovens, refrigerators, washing machines, and even a robotic vacuum.Equipped with an NFC tag you scan with a smartphone to connect to the devices,  once you’ve synced everything up to your phone, you can turn on your washing whilst in a meeting or start cooking a roast on the train back from work.Come on, what’s cooler than rocking through your front door to a roast dinner and clean clothes?Goal Zero’s Yeti 150Ok so this might not be an everyday appliance but this little cube could save your life in the event of a natural disaster or power black-out.The Yeti can store 150 watt-hours of energy – enough to run a tablet for a week or y’know, do something important like boiling water to sterilise it or cooking food for a baby.The Yeti 150 can be charged from the mains power but there’s also a solar panel that can charge it in 15 hours. The Yeti 150 also has a heavyweight big brother, aptly named Yeti 1250, which can be used for charging larger appliances in the event of the inevitable apocalypse.

The Bad

The Hapi ForkApparently the Hapi Fork counts the amount you eat and how fast you eat it. It then vibrates to tell you to stop eating.Basically it’s a utensil that tells you not to eat too much. As one of EML Wildfire’s directors put it “isn’t that what your brain does?”Somehow this ludicrous gadget has been grabbing the headlines this year, probably due to some good PR, (not necessarily because the product is useful).

The Ugly

The FitbugNow don’t get me wrong, fitness-tracking devices are a great invention. It’s just the Fitbug that confuses me.Why would you want something that looks like a watch… but isn’t a watch? The Fitbug doesn’t even have a screen.According to the manufacturers, the device tracks your every step and then communicates via Bluetooth with your phone. Wow… a wireless pedometer… the future is here.