R245k smart baths, rollable phones and robot butlers: cool tech from CES 2021

Most people who've been to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) — the technology trade show that's taken place in Las Vegas, Nevada, every January since 1998 — will tell you not to go if you can possibly avoid it.

First, Sin City should be visited for pleasure, not work.

Second, sprawling over multiple venues as it does, CES is exhausting to navigate — just getting from the first hall to the last at the primary venue can take over half an hour, and that's with travelators on the elevated corridors that connect each of them.

And third, you're going to get sick. The combination of air travel to get there, arduous working days, alcohol-soaked late nights (to convince yourself you play as hard as you work) and sleep deprivation all but guarantee illness in its wake. It even has a name: the "CES flu."

So why bother? Why does anyone endure it if it's so onerous? Well, like summiting a far-flung, snow-covered, potentially fatal peak, there are the bragging rights. There's also the exclusivity.

You get to say not only that you survived, but also that you were there. You saw the latest in gadgetry, entertainment, life-extension, vapourware, transportation, and, umm, smartphone-case ingenuity before anyone else — well, anyone aside from the other 171,267 who attended CES 2021, according to the organisers' official figures.

The problem this year was that going anywhere, and especially to the US, might literally kill you. So, instead, the event and its attendees had to settle for a remote experience. Rather than running between conference halls and carefully co-ordinating calendars to ensure someone was in the right line, at the right venue, for the right event, this year the events came to us.

Those of us in the media instead watched our inboxes swell (and then effectively collapse) under the weight of invitations to pick a slot for a Zoom session with one or another executive, eager to extol the virtues of their company's latest app or gadget or streaming service or smart cat-litter tray or adult toy.

Spare a thought for the poor exhibitors, though, because the problem with that approach is that it's really easy to ignore. When you're going to Vegas and need to earn your keep, a full diary is necessary, expected, and a badge of honour. But follow-up e-mails between other follow-up e-mails eventually turn into nothing more than white noise.

Add to that an attempt to overthrow the US government as the Trump administration hacked out its final death rattles, and the same administration's world-leading ineptitude resulting in record-breaking fatalities and new infections day after day during the virtual event last week, and suddenly paying attention to robots no one will ever buy or headphones none of us have use for — stuck at home as we are — seems not just asinine, but insane.

But hey, I get it, you want to know what was unveiled nonetheless. Here's the executive summary:

SCREENS, SCREENS, SCREENS

First, there were laptops. Oh, so many laptops. There were new ones from Asus, MSI, Acer, Razer, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and plenty of lesser-known brands, many of them aimed at gamers and festooned with bright lights and outlandish, angular finishing touches.

What's worth knowing about them? For a start, new processors from AMD and Intel promising Apple-rivalling performance (Apple, by the way, never attends). Then there's the growing prevalence of built-in 4G or 5G support (as has been on offer in iPads and Android tablets for years). That's extremely welcome.

One day, we'll be able to go and drink overpriced coffees out in the world while we pretend to work. These new lap warmers will be ideal for looking the part.

ON DISPLAY.

What about the inevitable outlandish gear? Well, on that front, unusual screen form factors took top honours. China's TCL (which last year had a tree at its stand covered in malleable phone and tablet screens) made a display that could roll open and closed like a giant scroll.

LG, meanwhile, showed off rollable screens on both phones and TVs, and Oppo is working on a rollable phone of its own.

Will any of these turn into real products? Perhaps. Will you or I be able to afford them if they do? No.

FUTURE FLOPS

As for the products on (virtual) display that most enthusiastically tapped into the zeitgeist, three come to mind.

First, Razer's Project Hazel: a transparent face mask with colour-changing LED lights, swappable filters, and an amplifier/speaker setup so the wearer's voice doesn't sound muffled. There's no price, no release date, and basically no hope of it making it to market, but it's very pandemic cyberpunk chic.

Sticking with the pandemic theme, Samsung showed off its Bot Handy home robot that can clean dishes and, far more usefully, pour a glass of wine with its soft-touch robotic digits. More wine and fewer dishes? Sign us up immediately. Only, Samsung won't. Because it loves making cute robots only slightly more than it loves never actually selling them to the public.

Finally, there was one other product that would perfectly complement months of mask wearing and many an evening of wine drinking: the Kohler Stillness Bath. Your voice alone can control its temperature, aromatherapy settings, and even the integrated mood lighting.

It's the ultimate treat for unwinding after a long day of working from home (or a long week of virtual CES). The only problem? It's priced at roughly R245,000. Which is the opposite of calming, relaxing or soothing. And that's before Sars's customs and excise division tacks on its share.

CES 2021 achieved the core tenets the show is known for: a surplus of products (many of them only a prototype-and-lavish-video away from being imaginary), plenty of high geekery, and lots of early-stage, irrationally expensive gadgets. But it couldn't replicate its most valuable features: in-person interactions, hands-on experiences with products, the giant portions of Vegas restaurants, and the sense that it was something you wish you hadn't gone to but also didn't want to miss.

CES is the tech industry's greatest fantasy, but this year it was no match for reality. Fortunately, there's always next year. I'm dreading — and longing for it — already.