The Best of the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show

The Scio Spectrometer puts the power of the legendary “Star Trek Tricorder” in your hands. This compact device can tell you the makeup of almost anything – be it animal, vegetable or mineral. Results appear on a smartphone-enabled app.

Photo courtesy of Scio

PRIME – February 2015 By Gary M. Kaye Editor, Tech50+ (www.tech50plus.com) To be blunt, this was the biggest Consumer Electronics Show (CES) ever, but not the best. It was filled with incremental improvements, but few breakthrough technologies. There were literally hundreds of wearable devices all looking for space on your wrist, and more and more 4K UHD televisions from more manufacturers, still in search of 4K native content. That being said, there were products that caught my attention. I’ll skip the 3D printing – it’s an exciting technology but I don’t think many readers will be buying it. As far as wearables, I‘ll admit I only saw a fraction of those on the floor, but one stood out, the Healbe wearable health monitor. Healbe GoBe – I saw countless fitness trackers, but the Healbe was the only one that could measure your caloric intake through the skin without having to hand-enter everything you eat. It also provides the usual tracker functions including a heart rate monitor. The blood glucose technology is not accurate enough to meet the needs of diabetic, but it’s better than anything else I’ve seen. More show standouts Here are some other products that we really liked at this year’s CES: Lenovo Yoga2 8-inch tablet with AnyPen technology – AnyPen puts a metal sensitive layer under the screen that can read anything metallic including a graphite pencil. The tablet runs Windows and will let you take notes with a pencil, pen, fork, knife, or almost anything else at hand, then converts them into text. One compelling use case for AnyPen is drilling down into those submenus in Windows, where your fingers may be just too big to get an accurate result. With AnyPen, a pen or other pointed object can easily pinpoint what you want to initiate. Whill advanced design wheelchair As longevity increases, more of us will inevitably face mobility issues. Thanks to this striking design from Japan, the wheelchair may no longer be the limiting – or the stigmatized – device it’s always been. Beyond design, the Whill can turn on a dime in any direction, thanks to sideways rollers built into the front wheels. It also has an app, so a companion can walk alongside someone in the chair and control it without having to push or tug. Asus ZenFone2 – It’s getting increasingly difficult to get excited about a new smartphone. But the new Asus Zenfone2 has a couple of things going for it that makes it stand out from the crowd. There’s the price – Asus has decided to go its own way, introducing the phone for just under $200 without any carrier support. It has the full functionality of any premium phone, and an extraordinarily sharp camera that can virtually see in the dark without a flash. You can also customize it with big icons to make it very easy to use for those who are somewhat visually impaired. Lenovo ThinkVision X24 Monitor Using a tablet or even a compact laptop for your traveling needs is great, but sometimes, it would be nice to come home and plug your device into a big screen. That’s exactly what you can do with this almost paper-thin 24-inch display that offers full HD viewing and is attractive enough to be a design element to your home office. At $249, it’s also inexpensive enough to be a great addition to any dorm room. Powerall Pocket Jump Starter – Coming back from the 60 degree plus temperatures in Las Vegas to the freezing temperatures in New England was a stark reminder of our winter reality: snowplows, ice melt, and dead car batteries. At CES we saw a line of small and sleek pocket sized car jumpers from Powerall that aren’t much larger than many power banks that can charge a tablet or a smartphone. Some are ruggedized, others slim enough to keep in a purse. These devices make a great addition to your ready-for-winter arsenal. Ecovent Systems HVAC controllers – If you live in a home with central air, like I do, you may be faced with the situation where a single thermostat controls the air flow for an entire floor. But not every room is the same. So my thermostat sits in a hallway where there are no vents. And it can read 70 degrees while my living room is really 67 and my kitchen 74. The Ecovent system allows you to drop controllers in the existing vent openings, and use modules to control air flow into each room using a smartphone app. Burg Stainless Steel SmartWatch – I liked this smartwatch for a couple of reasons: the round stainless steel face would look great on any man’s wrist; it has a built-in SIM card so it can be used as a standalone device not paired to a smartphone. I saw the Burg watch running the Glide video messaging app in real time. The age of Dick Tracy has finally arrived in an attractive form factor. Lenovo LaVie Z Ultralight Ultrabook – Lenovo, in partnership with NEC, showed off two very lightweight machines. The LaVie Z HZ550 comes in at less than 1 3/4 pounds, while the HZ750 lays claim to being the world’s lightest ultrabook at just over 2 pounds with a 13.3-inch screen. The machines have a tough magnesium case and a fold down flat hinge, a 128GB solid state drive and a fifth generation Intel processor. The larger laptop is priced at about $1,500. Scio Spectrometer – The Star Trek Tricorder comes to life. This tiny device was one of the winners of this year’s Last Gadget Standing contest at CES. It’s a tiny handheld spectrometer that can tell you the makeup of almost anything, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. I was particularly impressed with its ability to analyze samples of Coke and Pepsi. You point it at a target substance and within seconds the results appear on your smartphone app. Audi Self-Driving Car – At CES, Audi showed off a converted A7 that made the trip from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas with virtually no human intervention. The system uses radar and sensors to judge the speed of nearby vehicles, to stay in the right lane, and to overtake when needed. This particular system is designed for highway driving and not local streets. Audi has also introduced technology that will allow a driver to park a car using a smart phone app. An Audi spokesman says the self-parking technology is ready now, the self-driving car probably 5 years away. Samsung SUHD TV – Even though there’s still not very much native 4K content for those gorgeous new 4K –UHD televisions, industry sales have been picking up and pricing has dropped – in many cases dramatically. Samsung is raising the bar with what it calls its SUHD – TV system, a new type of screen that uses nano technology to create crystals that deliver a super-bright color picture. Samsung showed off one version of the set with a bendable 105” screen. Though it may look like a gimmick, we think there are instances in which being able to move from a flat screen to a curved screen may be useful. Sony 4K Mini Action Camera – I like this one for a couple of reasons: it’s got great optical stabilization – a real plus for things like bike riding; and it’s also got Sony’s LiveView remote system that lets you control the camera and see what it sees in real time on a wrist-mounted display. Price will be about $500. LG G-Flex 2 Smartphone – The LG G-Flex 2 is the first phone to use a new chip from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 810. The power of this chip is pretty impressive. Qualcomm showed us just how effectively the chip can run graphics like HD movies and games as effectively as many desktop computers. Like its predecessor, the Flex 2 has a curved shape that more closely matches the shape of your face and your hand. But this one really Is all about the feeds and speeds. Samsung Omni Directional Speakers – These new egg-shaped speakers from Samsung deliver a 360 degree sound experience quite unlike what you’re probably accustomed to hearing. They come in two different sizes and can be placed on their own floor stands, or sit on flat surface, and fill a room with sound. They are stylish to look at, and sounded great, even with the noise level at CES. Lenovo Thinkpad Stack – In an effort to lose weight, many laptop manufacturers have been shedding various components, leaving road warriors to sort out what add-ons they wanted to carry with them. Now, Lenovo has come up with a unique solution, a group of mix and match add-ons that can fit together as a stack and let the user pick which they’d like to mix and match. They snap together without cables. The four initial components are: • Bluetooth™ speaker – great for VOIP conferencing • Power Bank – charges two devices at once, perfect for powering up phones and tablets • 1TB USB 3.0 HDD – superfast data transfer and massive storage; great storage solution for Ultrabooks • Access Point – strong, stable Wi-Fi hot spot; 802.11ac certified Spin Master Meccano Meccanoid Robot Kit – Your childhood erector set meets the digital age. This was the other winner at this year’s Last Gadget Standing contest at CES. Simply put, it is a robot kit that does voice recognition and is easy to program. It is a tall as a small child and has some pretty amazing functionality. Gary Kaye is the creator of Tech50+ (www.tech50plus.com), the leading website covering technology from the Baby Boomer perspective. Kaye has been covering high tech for more than 30 years with outlets including NBC, ABC, CNN and Fox Business. He is a regular contributor to AARP and other websites on issues regarding the nexus of technology, seniors and baby boomers.