Our Biggest Takeaways from CES 2022!

Adam Jones  00:00

Technology Innovation,

Preston Snyder  00:03

CES and that’s what we’re talking about today. I’m pressing no I’m out I’m in this is your weekly social see yes happened.

Adam Jones  00:18

It happened. It actually happened.

Preston Snyder  00:20

I yeah, I did. That was it’s nice to see that a big event was able to go off not without many, many hitches that went wrong, but we were actually able to get a good show. I know 2020 ones was sad. 2020s was very sad. So to see like, I’m actually really excited to talk about CES today because it’s that good of a trade show. Well,

Adam Jones  00:50

that it looked like people actually came to play, right. Like, you know, sometimes people just show up to just show up, but it looked like people were no, we’re here to rock we’re here to win. We’re here to show off in really new and powerful ways. I appreciated that.

Preston Snyder  01:06

Yeah. So we we were kind of looking forward to some of the speakers and panels that were supposed to happen that largely didn’t

Adam Jones  01:14

like meta Facebook meta decided to drop out. Yeah,

Preston Snyder  01:17

Paris Hilton talking about NF T’s like that didn’t happen. heartbroken.

Adam Jones  01:22

Wait, like, confirmed it didn’t happen? Or just No, nobody covered it.

Preston Snyder  01:25

Nobody covered it if it did happen, but I don’t know that it did. Like there. Maybe that was part of that paid thing. A lot of coverage of any of the panels, but a bunch of some of the fun products.

Adam Jones  01:41

Yeah, so so we know that Samsung came to play with their QD le OLED. QDE D. So that’s what those are.

Preston Snyder  01:52

And a bunch of other stuff like Samsung kind of owned the show this year. Yeah, it was a TV monitor show. Yeah, ticular. Like, if you have a lot of money still, that you want to throw out a TV or a monitor, you should be very inspired, after this weekend,

Adam Jones  02:09

when I would make a distinction though, too, because in a lot of ways, this isn’t just Alright, now it’s the biggest monitor or the biggest TV, it’s highly functional technology. Even going into the ability to trade NF T’s with your Samsung TV, like that was one of the features and display it show it and actually give you a way to curate those digital assets that you can’t really put together like an art collection for in a manifested real world. Except in this type of space. I like that type of thinking for

Preston Snyder  02:46

function, the Odyssey arc as well, as a very, at first based on all their oppressors, it looks like oh, they did a Y axis monitor. But no, it’s a very adaptable function your screen like we are making this monitor for however you need to work and whatever your utilities are, it will adapt and adjust to you very impressive looking monitor for that, like, we understand this a billion workflows. We’re going to give you as much help as you can, and like really showed it on the floor. Yeah, oh, you need to rotate this to get your full x and have the best curved monitor, we got it. You need to remember that you haven’t neck and go up. I made a joke that if I were to get one that had my workflow, right about here, and then have No Man’s Sky, in the top half. So every time I look back, I would look at space, be fun, but go for that idea that you can have things stacked and almost that trope ish 90s view of here’s a billion monitors, to do all of your surveillance work for the FBI or whatever is now like, no, that’s kind of the vibe they’re going through of. Let’s have 20 monitors in one. So very, very fun stuff from Samsung.

Adam Jones  04:05

When we be regretful to not mention like AMD, Intel, and video showing up to the party to like, we know we’ve all been waiting for the GPU shortage. That’s something that does impact our industry quite a bit. Just because we do video editing there’s rendering there’s animations, motion graphics, we there’s parts and tools that we need that we actually cannot get a hold up. And so coming in at Nvidia had like a $250 price point for something that seemed workable and it came in at the 199 mark.

Preston Snyder  04:43

And it was really interesting in in graphics cards and hardware. Phones also the focus shifted from quality to affordability. Yeah, of more people need this. I think work from home culture was a big light to everyone of, oh, my home setup, it’s not good. Or here’s how much my work with an ID T department actually does for me. And I have to figure out how to do this in my home office. And that there is already kind of a level of shortages. And now it’s like, you just can’t get your hands on, even like, the average stuff you need. So I think responding to that need

Adam Jones  05:25

was well, even even in that, like anchor had that to care 2.5k thing was

Preston Snyder  05:31

to cave. Yeah. Video bar, I thought it was the anchor video bar with 2k output, it has a light bar on top is white is the camera speakers. So the focus is instead of typical setup, where you see like one of the ring lights or something in the back, and you have three different accessories for what you do. How do we make an all in one works? Yeah. So I think this thing is about $220, which for 2k footage is not terrible. This is not something you get if you’re just starting out and being like, I’m going to start a YouTube channel. But like if you’re using it for commerce, you’ve built stuff anyone to transition into something that is I’ll be a substantial upgrade for not actually that substantial cost. If you’ve been working

Adam Jones  06:27

well that it’s positioning, right, like we we talked about the monitors and the function when we talk about anchor or even these graphics cards. Part of it is there’s this new expectation for things to be better, bigger and sharper. You know, just being able to sit with a crummy laptop, webcam and integrated one. And it’s like still like staring up at your chin. And it’s just ugly, it sounds bad, it looks grainy, because the lighting is bad. In many ways, that is just positioning companies or even solopreneurs really poorly. You know, at bare minimum, their expectation. And this is one of the things I don’t get like your cell phone webcam, such front facing camera is way better than most webcams on your laptop, and you paid at this point for about the same. And the experiences, at bare minimum, put your cell phone up, attach it to a tripod or leaning up against a wall. And that looks so much better. Yeah. You know, when we’re trying to position ourselves as professionals to move things forward the best or do sales calls, do whatever. We should be looking sharp, I actually think that the anchor setup is actually a nice affordable step. Yeah. Because you can get like a 60 to $100, Logitech 920, C, whatever, have a few different models for that. And that does pretty good to do anything above that is a 600 to $800 DSLR with a special adapter setup. So then coming in at that $200 price point for something better. I think it’s really wise of them as a company.

Preston Snyder  08:14

Yeah. So we want to talk about Razer.

Adam Jones  08:20

Yeah, yeah, so they came out with some really cool stuff for that.

Preston Snyder  08:24

It’s an interesting shift. Like it happens but I noticed it a lot more this year to do all in ones. A lot of people being like if you are getting accessories, how about you get one accessory instead of six? Or if you’re getting something? How about a complete product. So this is done with PCs and razor is trying to do a laptop that is just multifunctional. It shifts and adapts based on what you need. It’s powerful in basically like we want to be the last thing you’ll ever practice. Yeah. And I think that was fantastic. There pressors because it’s a razor and they have their neon or jumpy affects all over the place. Very rainbow ask the big presser image that’s all over the place is you just see this green folded stable laptop, these bright neon button colors. It’s beautiful but also they are trying to really win that frustration a lot of people have won if you just bought one more thing. Yeah, I have to buy anything else for really until the next mark tech cycle is over. Which I appreciate because upgrading every year is tedious. Yeah, especially when we have a situation like the past three is very tedious and very difficult.

Adam Jones  09:50

I want to see a few other things from CES this year. I was hoping to see a little bit more of AR coming through I was hoping to see, I was really hoping to see Mehta come in enter the space. No other social media group really did anything. You know, this is I know can Peter entertainment slash consumer entertainment, electronics? Everything is there. Why were they not there. And to give an example, Walmart actually has a fairly large stake in tic toc. And part of the reasons they did that was when Oracle was buying them. Walmart came in as another American agent to buy ownership stake. Part of that ownership stake as what was reported was that they were supposed to help bring ecommerce and some purchasing and some other functionality. To me, it would have made sense to have Walmart or Tik Tok or some of those other social media agencies. Really be there.

Preston Snyder  10:51

Yeah. If we talked about meta specifically, while we didn’t see AR we saw a lot of VR, like everybody’s VR accessories came to play, see saw upgrade, LG had some products, they want to put out Sony, of course game they’ve been pushing. I can’t remember if Oculus specifically came. But a lot of people with their own, like versions of Oculus setups, and a lot of the some accessory companies to build around these. Were all there, the accessory ecosystem shut up and full force VR to CES. But I still don’t know if I’m going to be able to use any of this.

Adam Jones  11:31

Yeah. And as weak showing for them. Right. It’s it’s a fairly new company trying to restructure trying to legally protect themselves is the big reason. But the fact that Mehta was unable to show up, unable to bring new products to the marketplace, even the Facebook portal. Like that sounds kind of cool. I don’t know if you’ve ever played with one. They’re kind of cool. A little bit. It exists. It exists. It’s a cool webcam thing. There’s multiple tiered products. But what that says to me, and this is just pure speculation is that no one was equipped, or enabled or empowered to actually make ces a priority? Yeah. And that to me, makes it a little bit hard to say, oh, yeah, we should. We should be really investing in the Facebook Instagram world. If those types of things are not at base line minimum, being taken care of

Preston Snyder  12:25

even a statement because q4 from the stock market perspective, buying perspective, even from a new sector, perspective was all Metaverse everybody’s Metaverse is I’m surprised. Microsoft didn’t give any huge updates. Their stuff they just launched. They’re like, three or four companies that were like we want on Metaverse system. The best I got was Samsung is kind of selling FTS TVs,

Adam Jones  12:56

which is nice functionality to be brought to a consumer level.

Preston Snyder  12:59

Absolutely. But isn’t from any of the core ecosystems look like? We have all this stuff. I still don’t know what I’m going to use it for.

Adam Jones  13:10

Aside from that, what were things that you were hoping to see, that didn’t appear. Aside from more AR

Preston Snyder  13:16

Yeah. Again, I’m big on AR who would have liked to see that consumer robotics is something I enjoy. And there were good showings of that this year. Yeah. I’m a little surprised to not see a whole lot from Boston Dynamics. Anything one of their subsidiaries showed up in did stuff, but I was really looking forward to like version nine of the dog. My favorite, but this idea of Americans are always hesitant about robotics. We did get one robot this year from America robotics, a mecca that literally looks like the iRobot robot. i Yeah, it feels hard to meme. He said it was robots in this form. Androids in this shape are for entertainment purposes. And I’d kind of shake my head because it was impressive. It was scary. I don’t know if it was a good taste or bad taste. The colors were the same. And then on the other side of that you had the Labrador I believe this might have been the subsidiary of Boston Dynamics, unsure, home robot and it is the most simple looking thing. It is a rectangle on wheels. That goes around it has trays back and forth that will help you out and follow you reminders. It’s not trying to be a person. It is a box with trays. And it’s also kind of like a rub. island kitchen is basically what it is that can follow. It looks like it will work. It will be good. It’s not trying to be too much. And a lot of people were excited about that. Because finally, it was something that was simple and functional. Is it gonna work? We always say we want robotics, especially elderly are the target audience. Yeah. And this is something that’s like, maybe grandma would use this actually, because it’s, it’s helpful instead of trying to be your best friends. Oh, there’s a trade that showed up. And I don’t have to walk three feet. I was creeped out by the amount of Alexa compatible things that shipped.

Adam Jones  15:29

Yeah, there was a lot like that microwave. Microwave

Preston Snyder  15:33

was there was I think this had Alexa capability there was trying to remember that there was another gadget that less similar to the microwave that felt like it had no business having a I think it was a smartwatch or something. I like virtual assistants, but I don’t like them that much. Yeah. Because we we’ve seen over and over again, Alexa listens more than it’s supposed to. Yes. And it’s basically a tiny little surveillance. Thank you. But that’s my opinion.

Adam Jones  16:05

Well, and even even beyond that there one nice thing that was good to see was you had manufacturers like GE and others saying, we need to kind of standardize a lot of these smart home devices. Yes. So that they can all kind of play together. Instead of saying, oh, okay, well, I, you know, I bought a Samsung fridge. And I have a GE dishwasher. But I have to use separate apps and separate interfaces to do every single little thing. Yeah. And so that was a interesting conversation that did occur at CES.

Preston Snyder  16:39

And I’m happy for it. Yeah. Because that is frustrating. Yeah. And I think people are about done with 20 different apps for 20 different devices. And especially usually when a project dies or moves on. So does app support.

Adam Jones  16:54

Yep. Yep.

Preston Snyder  16:56

Like, for example, from my smart electronics, the Ember travel mug, I love it. I think it’s a great, my favorite part of it is it does have an app. I don’t need to use it. For like, for everything. If I press here, I can get everything I need from the menu here. I just get additional functionality from actually using the app. And there’s tiny things. But if they canceled support for the project today, and I could never use it again, I can still use my device. Yeah. There was a little more of that. So I I’m really curious on that. And what next year will look like for as much as it was a mild showing, like literally, this CES was ces by all means was not a mild presentation. No, no, I’d say I am excited for some of this stuff. I am excited for a lot of the state of the market. I’m excited to see if the BMW smart egg ever hits the market at all. Yeah. I’m really curious to see all of the controversy and excitement of the John Deere smart tractors.

Adam Jones  18:10

I love that. That’s what I’m really excited about. And if you didn’t see the announcement, John Deere came out with fully autonomous tractors, which, to me is kind of like the gold star for farming. Like that’s, if we can automate our farms. I just think of like, Superman on his home planet, like, you know, some of the animated series like they show that like fully automated fully autonomous farming. Now granted, that was all run by Brainiac. So that’s their version of Skynet. So I have some concern was it’ll, it’ll come back. They I don’t know that they’ve accounted for our region. We live in a place with lots of hills, Kansas or other places where it’s flat. Awesome. Here. Oh, that combines a little tougher.

Preston Snyder  18:56

And usually we have one or two people that buy large pieces of equipment, and everybody rents it from each other. Yeah. John Deere is not the first people to approach this. No, but I’m glad because they are by far the most mainstream company

Adam Jones  19:08

to do. They are they are and but they haven’t been without faults. There’s been there’s been times where a farmer has gone out to see their tractor and like I talked to a farmer who did this had this happen. And Les Schwab was there checking out the tires on the tractor, because the tractor had sent out an SOS saying that it had a flat tire and that it needed support. And there was no there was no flat. And it’s kind of a hard thing for I think John Deere is doing great movements. I think they’re doing great things. Like I said, they’re not the first ones to approach this. It is difficult for companies to pivot that hard as instead of a farming manufacturing equipment company, to a certain extent a software engineering company. Yeah.

Preston Snyder  19:57

And I would say kind of close In your opinion, based on this based on kind of the year, where do companies in the space need to pivot in 2022?

Adam Jones  20:11

I think the trend towards functionality is the biggest. When there’s kind of this weird dichotomy between being the most innovative, we got to have the most pixels and a screen, we got to have the biggest screen because that’s what CES has been kind of the last four years, there’s been kind of almost as innovation wall that we haven’t really been able to hit very well, or get past. And the way that people are finally figuring out is it has to be functional. There has to be a reason for me to buy a 65 inch TV, versus keeping my 40 or my 55. Oh, was QD led OLED, like, oh, okay, yeah. I 2.5k monitor at home is great. Okay, well, actually, the article looks pretty good. How can I how can I use this functionally better? How can it improve my customer user experience, and even then build affinity towards the brand.

Preston Snyder  21:14

And even one one of the things that smart TVs I think did very well. And I like that trend is just even low level questions. Like, can I stream my YouTube videos on it? Yeah, can I have my Spotify playlist? Listen, if I pull out my phone, and I want to watch something, can I do it?

Adam Jones  21:33

Okay, so I know we’re supposed to close soon. Did you see the headphones that you don’t have to touch that work off of your neuropathy signals? No. So it’s very, very basic. But it’s not the Bluetooth turntable? And that was no no no. So earbuds, but with your brain, just say pause and pause your music or next track? That to me, that’s a little bit too much. But But that type of functionality, right at a base level, how can we make it that much more functional earbuds? There’s some will fit in your ear? Some of them won’t. How can we make this better? Well, yeah, I have a four year old, my hands are gross sometimes. And I don’t really want to get whatever goo is on my hand on my headphones. But there’s a lot of ways that type of stuff really should be the movement forward. That’s all we have for today. We’re so excited to be doing a live show. I haven’t seen any questions or stuff. come through the chat. Peter, have you seen anything come through the chat? Awesome. Thank you all so much. We love doing this. We’re excited for 2022 as a new year, we are exceedingly optimistic, and exceedingly excited.

Preston Snyder  22:46

This has been our CES 2022 coverage. Thank you. Have a nice day. And we’ll see you next time on your weekly social

Adam Jones  22:56

extravaganza that’s an extravagant

Preston Snyder  22:59

see, yes, extravagant. It was extra. It was and I think we just gonna make small talk until the stream.

Adam Jones  23:07

Australian we talk to each other until Peter gets a cue that we’re supposed to be done. You just we’re just here