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Personal Favorites of CES 2019

I’m not going to bother you with my take on drones, self-driving cars, 3D printers, wearable devices, or the other main product categories at CES. The professionals cover those areas very well and you know where to find them. If you are curious you can check out my CES 2019 photo gallery on my Google Drive. 

Here are a few products that are currently enhancing the conversation I’m having with friends & family:

Home Biogas Digester

Imagine a device that takes your human waste, dog poop, and your compost and turns it into clean biogas for cooking or heating and fertilizer. No power required. All powered by enzymes and the sun.

How much would you pay for that? You can buy a unit for your home for $720. This company in Israel already solved the riddle for us. No need to head to YouTube and start a DIY project.

No, this unit is not the perfect solution for most individual households. But it’s a great proof of concept and can trigger some valuable thought processes. 

Could larger units be used for multi-family complexes or entire municipalities? It’s been tried with moderate success before. The system certainly still needs some tweaking but the potential is gigantic, especially when considering the alternatives.

Source Hydropanels from Zeromass Water

Imagine taking water out of the air, with a self-contained unit that powers itself. Then this water gets enriched with minerals and is ready to drink or any other use.

No well. No water provider. All powered by the sun.

These units look like oversized solar panels and need the sun to operate. I asked about our dry air in Colorado but the manufacturer is on equally dry land and tells me they work fine under those conditions. Each panel costs $2000 and creates about 1/2 a case of water per day. 

I see those as a perfect solution for remote areas. Imagine some of them in parks (far away from the next creek) or providing water where a well or long pipe installations would otherwise be needed (huge cost savings). IMHO, anywhere from 2-4 units could be sufficient for a small, water-conscious household.

Home security sensor

There is an endless plethora of home security solutions being offered. Most of them require a ton of different sensors and won’t do everything that I’d be looking for. Either a water leak detector is missing, the solution is subscription-based (monthly fees), it runs only on a proprietary platform (another app!!!) or something else just doesn’t feel right just yet.

The sensor from Minut works with Google Assistant, monitors noise, motion, temperature, and humidity. It retails for $149. It simply gets installed to the ceiling and just needs a recharge every 6 months via USB-C. That’s simple enough for me. 

Airpulse Loudspeakers

Does anyone still consider Hifi equipment in the days of Sonos when you just get a few of those units and are all set? I’m in-between chairs. I enjoy my Sonos system but know that it’s not a high-end solution. That’s where the Airpulse A300 from Edifier comes in. These are just two speakers with a built-in amp; no subwoofer. The sound is stunning and the pair retails for $1100. They have an even larger solution but for a medium-sized room those two speakers will do. They need to be 25-50cm away from the wall but otherwise, you just need an audio source and you’re good to go. 

For future consideration

Bendable screen products

Bendable or rollable screens have finally reached a level of quality where we will see them in more and more consumer products. A rollable screen TV by LG showed what’s in the pipe. Think Christmas shopping at Costco around 2023 or 2024.

Smart water flow sensors 

A number of manufacturers showed their smart water leak detectors. These units come with a shut-off valve that gets triggered when an unusual usage pattern is being detected that could be triggered by a leak. These units still cost significant $$$. This unit by Moen currently retails for $499. I’ll wait for prices to come down but eventually, we should see those in every single household. Home insurances might consider paying for them in the form of discounts since water damage is generally a costly affair to deal with.

Please Note: I don’t have any ties with any of the companies mentioned above. The links to the products or manufacturers are not affiliate links. I’m simply sharing.

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