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Phonak Virto Black hands-on: A hearing aid that gives you superpowers
Something weird is happening. I'm walking through a Las Vegas casino having a normal conversation with someone on my left. This might not seem too strange to you, but the noisy background of slot machines and desperation combined with my one-sided hearing loss usually renders what listening ability I do have useless. Today, however, I'm wearing the Virto Black hearing aid from Phonak, and it's kinda blowing my mind.
Vote for the Best of CES 2020 People's Choice Awards!
We've announced our Best of CES finalists, so now it's time for you to cast your vote for your favorite gadget at CES 2020! Just head over here (or below) to pick your three favorite items from our pool of finalists. You have until 6 PM ET tomorrow, January 9th, to get your votes in.
Presenting the Best of CES 2020 finalists!
Our editors have been hard at work the past few days finding the latest and greatest gadgets here at CES 2020. Now we're ready to announce our finalists for the official Best of CES awards. Below you'll find our selections for all 15 categories, which range from best TVs to the most sustainable products we've seen at the show. We'll announce our category winners tomorrow, which is also when we'll reveal our Best of the Best award recipient, the most coveted prize of all. That special award is selected from our pool of category winners.
Echelon made a more-affordable smart rowing machine
If you've heard of Echelon, it's probably in the context of its cheaper-than-Peloton connected spin bikes. The company also makes smart exercise mirrors, and here at CES, it was showing off its forthcoming Echelon Row rowing machine. After spending a few minutes on the show floor rowing, I think I might be smitten with this quite affordable, pretty clever machine, which is a world away from what I'm currently using.
V-Coptr Falcon is a bi-copter drone with a 50-minute flight time
You may not be familiar with the name Zero Zero Robotics, but its foldable Hover Camera may ring a bell. Having finally started shipping the Hover 2 to beta testers last month, the company is already showing off a different kind of drone at CES -- one that was inspired by the V-22 Osprey military aircraft. As the name suggests, the V-Coptr Falcon is a V-shaped bi-copter that boasts an impressive 50-minute flight time -- a figure that should worry DJI, whose flagships only last for about 30 minutes.
Numark's DJ2GO2 Touch is made for aspiring DJs
Numark's controllers are ubiquitous in the world of professional DJing, and the company is hoping to get more amateurs in on the action with its DJ2GO2 Touch. The device easily fits in a backpack alongside a laptop, but it still packs cueing, looping, sampling and scratching functions. The Touch is an upgrade from 2017's DJ2GO2, with the biggest update being its capacitive jog wheels. These are the same type of touch sensitive wheels that are found on most professional DJ units, but in a much smaller package.
Making music with BeatBox, a Labo-like drum machine kit
When I first heard about the BeatBox, I was skeptical. A build-it-yourself drum machine made from cardboard? Wouldn't that disintegrate within half an hour? Finger-tapping isn't as violent as, say, regular drumming with wooden sticks, but when you're in the zone you still tend to hit the buttons with melodic oomph. (At least, that's what I tend to do.) After a few seconds with the crowdfunded instrument, though, those fears evaporated. I'm no musical expert, but it's clear the BeatBox has been thoughtfully designed and can take a chunk of performative punishment.
This in-home water recycler is meant to help the planet, and your wallet
With concerns over water scarcity on the rise, companies are increasingly looking to give people ways to reduce their water consumption. For Hydraloop founder and CEO Arthur Valkieser, the answer was clear: Build a device that gives homeowners and building developers a way to sterilize and reuse their water.
Julia is a smart kitchen gadget destined for the shopping channel
If there's one thing that CookingPal's Julia is going to have to deal with, it's the implication that it's destined for a life as a shopping-channel mainstay. You can imagine the smooth-voiced announcer listing all of the things it can do: It weighs! It chops! It mixes! It kneads! It cooks, but that's not all, because it can even cook your food! It's a stand mixer that you could conceivably use to make an entire meal, and it'll even wash itself up... all for three easy payments.
The Arcadeo Gaming chair has 10 customizable zones of haptic feedback
Arcadeo isn't messing around with its first connected-gaming chair. The Arcadeo Gaming chair has 10 haptic transducers positioned along its spine and seat, plus a 16-core multiprocessor that takes multichannel audio and turns it into physical vibrations. The chair connects to a PC, TV or console via USB-C: Since the sensors are tuned to read audio, it works with any platform and any game (or Netflix binge session) instantly.
NuraLoop hands-on: Possibly the smartest earbuds around
Nura burst onto the headphone scene a couple of years ago with the Nuraphone. With its app-based hearing test for customized audio, haptic bass, noise cancellation and over-ear-but-still-in-ear design, it was clear the company never received its copy of the rule book. This was confirmed when it revealed its $199 NuraLoop buds that are both wired and wireless (depending on your preference), claim a solid 16 hours battery life (in Bluetooth mode) and, of course, come with the same automatic hearing test to adapt their sound to your hearing.
Feles wants to build all-in-one bio labs for the intensely curious
Generally, CES is where you go if you want to see uncanny valleys made of gorgeous screens or to try a salad prepared by a robot. Eureka Park, though, is home to oddball projects that often grab you in ways you don't always see coming. That was my experience with Feles, a startup based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts: This small team is hard at work on its first product, an all-in-one home laboratory that gives people the opportunity to get acquainted with biological lab work.
Twitter will give you control over who can reply to tweets
Twitter has yet another way to reduce harassment in your mentions: Prevent ne'er-do-wells from replying in the first place. It's developing a feature that lets you determine who's allowed to participate in the conversation. In addition to the usual free-for-all (global), you can limit replies to people you follow and mention (group), only the people included in the conversation (panel) or no one at all (statement). You wouldn't have to take your account private just to avoid strangers hurling toxic commentary in your direction.
Yale Home aims to fend off porch pirates with its smart delivery box
Whenever you're not home and a delivery driver leaves a package on your porch, there's a chance that an opportunistic thief will amble by and snag the box. In a bid to help protect your stuff, Yale Home is releasing a smart delivery box.
The Quasar home EV charger can power your car and your house
Power typically only flows in one direction when it comes to charging electric vehicles at home: from the base station into the car. However the Quasar system from Wallbox can push power both ways, either into the vehicle or back into the base station and onto the local utility grid. And now it's coming to America.
Quibi's secret weapon: Videos that work in portrait and landscape mode
What the heck is Quibi? That's the question I've been asking myself over the past year, as the Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded streaming video company steadily amassed a whopping one billion dollars in funding. We've seen notable names like Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro signing up to make very short shows (up to 10 minutes) for the service, even though it didn't sound very different from other similar offerings (RIP Go90). What did all of Quibi's supporters know that we didn't?
Samsung’s T7 Touch SSD can be locked with a fingerprint
Security is especially important for portable SSDs, which might carry tons of sensitive information yet end up tossed in a bag. Samsung recognizes this. To make its latest portable SSD more secure, it has added a fingerprint sensor to the new T7 Touch, which was named a CES 2020 Innovation Awards honoree.
Solar-powered GENNY pulls clean water from the air
Watergen's GENNY runs on a simple mechanism. It draws moist air in through a filter at the back of the device like a dehumidifier then cleans and dispenses it out the front like a standard water cooler. (As a bonus, it'll purify the air around it too). It can dispense 13 liters of water per day with 9 KWH of energy and works in 15-40 degrees celsius with a relative humidity of more than 25 per cent.
Opte is a printer that covers up only the blemishes on your skin
Applying concealer or foundation all over your entire face just to cover up some discolored portions is a waste of time and product. Not all of your skin needs to be masked -- if you could spot-erase blemishes, you could look picture perfect while still letting your pores (mostly) breathe. The problem is, it takes a ton of time, patience and skill to do that. Enter the Opte "precision skincare" thermal "printer." It's a handheld scanner-and-cartridge system that you drag across your face, and it will "print" concealing pigment on specifically the discolored bits.
Spotify is about to revolutionize podcast ads
2019 was a big year for Spotify in terms of podcasts. The company padded its content library and added an easy-to-use podcast production tool through acquisitions. In 2020, the streaming service is making a big change to ads available on the episodic content. With technology called Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI), Spotify will offer podcasters and advertisers detailed analytics that haven't been available before. The company will be able to provide stats like actual ad impressions, frequency, reach and anonymized audience info. That audience info includes age, gender, device type and listening behavior.
