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CES Comes Home: The Best Intros At The Show

This article is more than 3 years old.

Remember when CES was all about new TVs and assorted digital doodads? Well, they are still there but increasingly the consumer electronics world had become all about new home furnishings products and technologies for household uses.

It’s clearly not your father’s CES anymore.

At this year’s show, held virtually of course and just completed, the range of product debuts for homes was no less impressive, important — and in some cases — wildly impractical than it has been over the past few years. Whether it was home security, health and wellness or a disturbing new toilet that provides far more information on your digestive tract than you ever wanted, the range of introductions once again showed the future of our homes…both good and bad.

We checked out some of the more interesting new products and technologies and while none could be seen in person or tried out in real life, we find these particularly worth noting:

Smart Toilet: Ok, you know this is the one you want to hear about. So cutting right to the bottom, so to speak, take a seat on the new Toto Wellness Toilet, from Japan, of course, the home of toilets that do so much more than just flush. This one apparently reads your “key outputs” and determines how healthy your diet is and what you should be eating instead. Think of it as a fill-in-your-favorite-ethnic-stereotype mother replacement.

Bathing Beauty: If there was ever a time we all needed a sanctuary to get away from it all, it’s been the past year so Kohler — the people who make kitchen and bath fixtures — introduced the Stillness Bath. Without a firsthand dip, we’d say it’s one-part Japanese soaking tub, one-part smart temperature control, one-part infinity pool and one-part just weird with a built-in fog machine. For $16,000 they better supply the bubble bath too.

Mop Top: In an age of Roombas and such, it’s getting hard to find a new twist on floor cleaning products. Well, the folks at Roborock have decided that the chore of dragging your used mop across your just cleaned floor is just all-too-much so their S7 has an auto-lifting mechanism to solve this deadly problem. Whew, we’ve been really worried about mop residue this past year.

Wave If You See Trouble: Home security systems have become pretty ubiquitous but some people were impressed with a new one called Hex Home by Origin Wireless AI that uses Wifi waves to detect unwelcome movement. Who even knew there was such a thing as Wifi waves?

Dog’s Life: Anyone with a pet and a front door knows they often don’t get along so Chamberlain, a garage door opener, introduced an internet-connected dog door that must be pretty amazing because it will retail for $3,000. You’ve got to really love your dog for that, right?

TV in Bed: We all do it, so why not have the television as part of the bed itself. LG Display, sister company to the consumer electronics brand, showed a 55-inch TV built right into the foot of the bed. Of course it raises and lowers as you see fit and can even be partially shown if you just want to check the time and weather…just like a $14 clock radio.

Self-Serve/Self-Make Ice Cream: Think of this as a Keurig for dessert. The ColdSnap rapid freezing machine makes ice cream in 60 to 90 seconds they say…not to mention frozen drinks like margaritas. No word on whether it will make your Ben & Jerry Chunky Monkey substitute but we guess it saves space in the freezer.

There’s More: We haven’t even talked about the touchless doorbells, shower-powered speakers, all manner of smart masks and the endless parade of robot introductions that are nothing like the ones from 1950’s sci-fi movies. They were all there, virtually.

Just as with the real thing in person, it was impossible to cover all the show introductions and probably tucked away in some obscure corner of the CES show platform — just as it would have been in aisle 472 of the Vegas convention center — is indeed the greatest thing since sliced bread. If so, we missed it.

And of course, caveat emptor, many of the products shown at CES never quite get to market. We’re still waiting for the 142-inch flat-screen TV we saw in 2005. We understand it’s coming soon. In the meantime, we’ll be in the tub if you need us.