CES 2019 Liveblog: The Gadget Future Is Here

This year’s CES, one of the biggest consumer tech showcases in the world, continues Thursday. Join us for live updates from the show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Amy Lombard

Follow along to see reports from Thursday at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the newest updates appearing at the top.

Goodnight, CES.

That's a wrap for Thursday's liveblog, which means our live CES 2019 coverage is coming to an end. There's plenty to look back on, like our Best of CES awards, and our photo galleries from days one and two.

There are also plenty of gems in our liveblogs from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Here are some other headlines from the show:

Clean Machine
Amy Lombard

Usually, you turn on an air purifier, they move air and remove dust and other basic contaminants, then you turn them off. The Aura Air is different. It's more like a security camera for your air. Install it on your wall and it monitors a room day and night with what the company describes as a five stage purification process. It can detect smoke, dust, viruses, bacteria, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals—either eliminating them or notifying you through a smartphone notification. Its app also provides you with an "air score."

The goal is to let you know about issues around your home far before they're a safety concern. A Kickstarter campaign will launch in late January and the Aura Air should be available by autumn this year.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Meter Maid

Three years ago, a Berlin-based company called Soundbrenner shipped a wrist-wearable that doubled as a metronome—the perfect gadget for musicians looking to practice keeping a beat. At CES this year Soundbrenner is showing off a new version of the metronome watch that acts as a four-in-one device. The new device, called the Soundbrenner Core, has a display to tell the time (which makes it an actual… watch?). The magnetic top of the watch can be twisted off and used as a tuner. And it acts as a decibel meter, based on preprogrammed decibel levels. The Core isn’t shipping yet; after a successful Kickstarter campaign, it’s supposed to ship in March for $229. Hopefully Soundbrenner won’t, er, miss a beat when it comes to getting this thing out the door.—Lauren Goode

Clean Dreams

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CES will end tomorrow, but the stench of sweat, casino smoke, and shuttle-bus exhaust will probably linger on our clothes for days. Something like Samsung’s Air Dresser would be really useful right about now. This at-home dry cleaning booth steams, deodorizes, and dry cleans up to three items of clothing at a time. It can freshen clothes up in as quickly as 20 minutes if you’re in a rush, or take as long as two hours for a deeper cleaning. It’s sleek-looking, with a touchscreen interface, and of course, it’s internet-connected. Unfortunately, it’s only available in South Korea right now, for around $2,500, and Samsung isn’t saying whether it will come to the US. But a girl wearing yesterday’s conference clothes again can dream, can’t she?—Lauren Goode

Hot Stuff

After roaming CES for nearly a week trying devices that don't make hot chocolate, I was incredibly receptive to the Infini Mix by Japanese company Stuff, which does nothing but make glass after glass of delicious hot cocoa. You just add chunks of chocolate into a jar (milk optional) and the machine steams it and adds just enough water to make a cup of cocoa so rich you'll wonder what you're doing with your life—and why you aren't spending it exclusively covering chocolate innovation.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Stay Tuned
Amy Lombard

We reviewed—and really liked—the Nuraphones, the first pair of headphones from audio startup Nura. They scan your hearing by sending signals into your ears and listen for the echoes with a NASA-grade microphone. This let's them figure out how sensitive or dull your hearing is to every frequency. Once tuned, they sound fantastic. The only downside? They aren't the most comfortable to wear. This year, Nura hopes to change that with the NuraLoop, a pair of earbuds that aim to provide the same experience in a comfier package. They won't be out, or testable, until later this year, but the prototype at CES looks like a great start.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Looking Glasses

Pay no attention to my beautiful face here. I'm wearing concept eye tracking glasses by Imec, a Belgain research company. Instead of aiming cameras and sensors at my pupils, these glasses use electrodes mounted on the side and in and around the nose piece to detect electrical changes around my eyes when they move. They can detect 256 movements per second and the company believes they could be used in a host of applications, including VR.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Catch Your Breath

All this time and money spent monitoring baby breaths, but what about adult ones? The Spire is a small and easy-to-use clinical-grade sensor that attaches to the band of your underwear. Among other factors, it measures respiration rate, variability, and exhalation time to detect when a patient with a chronic disease like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) might be on the brink of a health event. While anyone can use it (it’s on sale at the Apple Store) it is currently undergoing FDA clearance to be prescribed by doctors. The goal is to cut down on hospital readmission rates for patients with chronic diseases like cystic fibrosis.—Adrienne So

Meal Ticket

Weighing your food and counting calories is a pain, but understanding what you eat and what's in it is a valuable way to learn about your own habits and diet. Pepper is a pre-Kickstarter concept right now, but it could one day become a $300 Alexa-enabled digital scale with a massive database of food. You'll tell it what you're adding, and it will give you any and all calories and nutrient stats. You can even tell it you want to add something—like 300 calories of peanut butter to your cookie batter—and it will tell you when to stop scooping it in. Being a crowdfunded project, of course, it's hard to know precisely when or if it will actually be available.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Play Ball

Just played ping pong against the Forpheus 5.0 robot built by Omron. I'm hoping the game doesn't foreshadow the future relationship between humans and AI-powered robots, because the thing beat me handily.—Michael Calore

Shark Tank

To me, this image sums up all the pathos of the waning days of CES: There are still meetings to go to and exciting new products to discover, but I’m beginning to feel a little like this non-functioning robot shark, led sadly around a swimming pool with a string.—Adrienne So

Take Flight

This is a tiny drone is called the Air Zen, though AirSelfie would rather you call it an aerial camera (because, words?). It's about the size of a small paperback book and can fly and be steered around like any quadcopter, but it's super power is that you can just toss it in the air and it will automatically fly up to a good height and take 4K video or shots of you, then gently come back down, no app or external control needed, it will hit shelves this year for $140.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Piece of Work

Welcome to the future of... office desks? The Cemtrex SmartDesk gives off a ridiculous Minority Report vibe at first, but it may be one of the more useful ideas at CES. It's a fully automatic standing desk with a powerful built-in Windows PC (enough power to game if you want) and three large touch monitors for getting work done. The keyboard is integrated and more comfortable than it looks, and the desk has some hidden perks, as well. It can wirelessly charge devices, scan documents sitting on the left side of the desk, and has some touch and air gestures to do things like zoom in or quickly move windows around. It may very well up your productivity. Unfortunately, it will also drain your wallet, with a starting price of $4,500.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Switch It Up

There's nothing particularly life changing about this Nintendo Switch Joy-Con charger by HyperX, except that it's built a lot sturdier and more thoughtfully than many Switch accessories. If you've loaded up on Joy-Cons to play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it's worth a look.—Jeffrey Van Camp

RoboJeeves

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Remote Control

Everywhere you look at CES, there are drones (OK, well, maybe just in the drone section). What we're now lacking are the pilots skilled enough to fly them, since most require around 100 hours a month to be proficient with a two-handed controller. And if you haven't logged a bunch of hours on an Xbox, the standard consumer drone controller can feel alien. The Fluidity FT Aviator drone controller is the world's first one-handed drone controller, and was developed by former astronaut and doctor Scott Parazynski. There's not much room for error when you're repairing space shuttles in zero gravity, so Parazynski drew on his experience in orbit and made the FT Aviator extremely intuitive. It also has camera functions, so you don't have to use an app, and has a lighted display to help you find and guide your drone home when it's a half-mile away.—Adrienne So

Aqua Unmanned
Amy Lombard

We saw the Navatics Mito earlier this week, and I finally got a chance to try it today. It's hard to test stabilization features in a quiet tank, but it is very easy to operate, and the Navatics team says that it can go against currents that are flowing up to two knots in speed (that's around 2.3 mph for the landlubbers). It can travel around 13 mph, with a battery life of around four hours. If you're a diver, marine biologist, or avid fisherman, you can pre-order it now for shipping in March.—Adrienne So

Tot Tech
Amy Lombard

Gadget-makers at CES 2019 have presented a raft of technology you, a proud mother, can use to track your child from conception, straight through to their teens. For the early end of the process, wearables like the Ava bracelet and the Tempdrop (shown above) both monitor variables like body temperature and heart rate variability ratio to predict a woman’s most fertile days. You can read more about all this technology for tracking fertility and raising a family in Adrienne So's survey of the trend.

A Cuter Commuter

Segways are so over. I saw the Yamaha spokesperson standing on the TriTown, screamed, ran over, and oddly enough, he let me get on it. The personal light electric vehicle looks something like a tiny BMX bike, with a rear-hub electric motor and a max speed of 15 miles per hour. The dual front-wheel system makes it feel stable, even when it's standing still. Unfortunately, it's not going to be on sale any time soon; Yamaha is still doing test marketing this year.—Adrienne So

Positive Altitude

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Travel Buddy

It may look like a boring phone charging brick, but the Fonebud W is actually an extremely useful phone charging brick if you're a world traveler. It's a global Wi-Fi hotspot that works in 90 countries without needing a new SIM card in any of them. You can buy data plans in every country through the device's app, and they usually charge by the gigabyte. And, of course, it holds a 10,000mAh charge, so it can top up your phone a few times over, either with USB or the built in wireless charger.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Best of Show

We've been here all week and we fly home tomorrow, so today is the day we're ready to pick our selections for WIRED's Best of CES awards. We've selected 10 products from 10 categories, ranging from smart home to televisions to transportation. Sometimes it's hard to see through all the hype and make-believe here at CES, but if you squint just right, you can see the future.

Bring the Heat
Amy Lombard

Boiling water for tea or coffee is a multi-minute task that many of us do several times a day, and Heatworks claims it has a solution. It’s showing off a prototype (currently nonworking) of the Duo, a battery-powered water carafe that instantly heats water as it pours through the spout. It uses the company’s Ohmic Array tech to heat water much quicker, and without a traditional heating element. Heatworks claims it will take about 20 to 30 seconds to pour an 8-ounce glass of water, and you can set the temperature to whatever you want, within a degree. It doesn’t have a precise release date, but the company claims it will cost between $100 to $150.—Jeffrey Van Camp

Do You Hear Voices?
Amy Lombard

HyperX make some of the best gaming headsets around, but its new Cloud Orbit S may be my new favorite. They come with head tracking tech. During a round of Call of Duty, I could hear voices and sounds move from left to right if I turned my head around, giving me better spacial orientation to the screen. The Orbit S are hi-res certified and come with 100mm Audeze Mobius planar magnetic drivers, which also gave them a liveliness not shared by a ton of headsets. Other perks include an extra long USB cord (PC and PS4 supported) and earcups that twist to rest comfortably your shoulders. It will come to store shelves in the United States later this year for $330.—Jeffrey Van Camp


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