CES 2012 – Day #2 and final thoughts 

Posted By Kim D'Amico on 01/13/2012

 After attuning myself to the CES chaos with my Day 1 adventures and coming to grips with my impressive celebrity encounter with Snooki, Day 2 turned out to provide better opportunities to get to the products and displays on my list (not to mention more celeb photo opps). 

The crowds of CES can throw a wrench into even the simplest of tasks – especially that of getting from Point A to Point B. After determining the monorail line was at least an hour long and waiting in a cab line for 20 or so minutes, my colleague and White Horse CEO, Jen Modarelli, and I decided to pile into a ridiculous looking stretch limo with a bunch of strangers when the driver offered to take us all to the convention center for ten bucks a head. Deal! I wasn’t expecting to start my day in the back of a limo suited for a weeping Bachelor reject or a Real Housewives cat-fight, but you find yourself getting around Las Vegas however you can short of hitch-hiking.

 

Once we made it to the convention center, we got to the Nexia™ Home Intelligence booth just in time for the web cam giveaway. Nexia was giving away indoor cameras to the first 250 booth visitors each day of the show, and people were swarming for their camera and for a few minutes with a Nexia expert to show them how the web cam can fit seamlessly into the home automation system. There were several live cameras set up in the booth to demonstrate how you can use your smart phone, tablet or computer to remotely watch a live feed of your home from wherever you happen to be. Nexia even recently released the new video recording feature so you can capture and store recorded video. Such an amazing feature! While traveling in Las Vegas, I can check in on…well…I don’t have much to check in on since my canine roommate was kicking it at the Stay Pet Hotel, but I could check in to make sure everything in my apartment was just as I left it.
 

Jen and I wanted to take advantage of the less dense morning crowd and take a spin back through the main hall and see the exhibits and products we couldn’t get close to Day 1. Of course, we had to go back to Intel to touch and feel and caress the ultrabooks. Price points for these babies, according to their representatives, are going to be in the $700-$800 range by the holiday season. Will you exchange the tablet that’s currently on your 2012 Christmas list for an ultrabook? I might.
 

Other winners from Day 2:

 

•  Microsoft/Nokia. Nokia is back! My very first cell phone was a Nokia, and while I evolved to various Blackberries and then to my beloved iPhone, my sturdy Nokia with the shiny red snap-on face plate and rubbery buttons still holds a special place in my heart. The new Nokia Lumia 4G with Windows smartphone is pretty slick. Slick enough to capture my interest even when I thought I was an iPhone girl for life. Microsoft has been dominating the office and even the home (Xbox), but has been booted out of the pocket by Apple and Droid. Could this be their opportunity to get back a piece of the mobile pie?

• Energy Management. We really are making a collective giant stride toward greener more sustainable living and a plethora of technology companies are developing ways to help us manage and control our energy consumption. Along with the bigger players like LG, Toshiba, and Motorola, the Nexia™ Home Intelligence efficiency bundle allows you to set temperature schedules, manage your heating and cooling remotely, and manage electrical appliances when not in use. It was only a few years ago that these connected homes of the future seemed so far off, but they’re a reality today and will become more and more commonplace in the near-term future. 

Not everything we saw fell into the winner’s column. A couple of dishonorable mentions:

• Toshiba’s Home Energy Management Live Action Display: This looked promising at first, with the comfy living room set-up on a stage and a tiny electric car parked alongside. Then the “show” started. The show consisted of a man and a woman acting out what life would be like in a home managed by the Toshiba “life design box.” The concept was definitely intriguing – this box allows full integration between the power grid smart meter, electric vehicles, a home solar panel, and all of your consumer electronics enabling optimal energy efficiency and sustainability. The painfully silly part was the acting/miming – seriously – we had to try pretty hard not to giggle when the woman busted out tree-pose in her smart living room wearing her smart yoga pants (okay, the pants weren’t smart). The guy, all in black, represented the technology, and would periodically freeze the woman mid-action to explain to the audience how the magic box is providing yoga chick a better life. We get it, but it would have been a bit cooler to give the audience something to actually interact with instead of the goofy performance art. We were able to side-step our way out of the front row before bursting into a round of snickers.

• Samsung’s “Truly Automatic Cleaning Robot”: This was cool and hilarious at the same time. It’s a little disc shaped Roomba-like automated floor duster, basically, with a couple of added benefits – a web cam and a speaker! It’s like a robot spy masquerading as a housekeeper – kind of the futuristic version of Alice from the Brady Bunch without the ridiculous uniform and bad jokes. I thought Jen was going to whip out her wallet to buy one on the spot – the possibilities of checking in on her sons’ afterschool homework and chore progress were mind boggling. Alas, it isn’t available to consumers yet, and worse, they couldn’t tell us when it would be. Boo!

And best for last – the celebrities. Oddly, the Nexia booth was situated in the center of a lot of the celebrity action. One had only a few booths to traverse before stumbling upon 50 Cent and even Justin Bieber. Bieber!! As a favor to the client (I swear), I elbowed my way into the melee at the Tosy Robotics booth where The Biebs was surrounded by flashbulbs, screaming nerds and body guards suitable for the President. He was next to impossible to get near, but I managed to snap a photo capturing his tiny head. While waiting for the optimal time to take a photo, I overheard more than one adult in the crowd near me saying something along the lines of, “I cannot believe I’m actually standing here trying to get a good look at Justin Bieber.” Me neither.

  

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