The Best Smart Home Tech at CES 2024
January 15, 2024
I’d imagine if you’re reading this you’re familiar with CES or the annual Consumer Electronics Show. It’s the world’s largest consumer technology trade show and serves as a platform for tech companies of all sizes to showcase their finished products, prototypes, and ideas. At last week’s show there were 4,000+ exhibitors, 1,200+ startups and attracted over 130,000 attendees.
With numbers like those and with the incredible growth of technology, the variety of offerings includes:
- Digital Health
- Family & Lifestyle
- Fitness & Wearables
- Food Technology
- Gaming & Esports
- Home Entertainment
- Robotics & Drones
- Smart Cities
- Space Technology
- Sports Technology
- Vehicle Technology
And of course, smart home technology. The show included futuristic flying cars and talking robots but most smart home users’ needs are much simpler. I’ll cover some of what I consider the newest and most innovative smart home tech in this post.
Smart Lighting
GE Lighting launched new Cync Under cabinet smart light fixtures at CES 2024 that are available as puck and bar fixtures to suit your space’s needs. Cync gives customers the choice of hard-wiring, plug-in, or battery installation, and the ability to connect up to ten of these Matter smart lights together. They’ll be available later in 2024.
Out of the many other smart lights showcased, Nanoleaf’s new Smart Outdoor String Lights stood out with some impressive, beautiful string lights with all the Nanoleaf capabilities you’d expect, including Matter support.
Robot Vacuum
CES has always been a showcase of fantastic achievements in robotics, especially robot vacuums and mops. One that I found impressive is the Dreame X30 robot vacuum and mop. This robot vacuum features an interesting feature that cuts any hair that may be tangled in the brush rollers — definitely an improvement over the Roomba I have. The cutting heads are carefully tucked away to ensure that floors and carpets aren’t scratched as the robot moves around your home.
The Dreame X30 also features 8000Pa of suction power, dual oscillating mop heads, and automatic carpet detection to lift its mop pads up to avoid them. It’s currently available for preorder at the early bird special of $1,240, down from its $1,700 retail price.
Other brands like Roborock and Ecovacs also launched new products at CES 2024. Roborock launched a new S8 Max series of robot vacuums and mops available in April 2024, including models that will feature a refill and drainage system that connects to a home’s water supply.
Ecovacs also announced a new variant of the Deebot X2 Omni, the new Deebot X2 Combo, available at the end of March for $1,599. This variant makes the Omni station, where the robot vacuum docks to empty its dustbin and wash its mop pads, also function as a charging dock for a new Ecovacs handheld stick vacuum.
Home Security
A biometric door lock I like is Philips Home Access — a new WiFi Palm Recognition Smart Deadbolt. It features a sensor embedded in its exterior escutcheon that scans the palm of your hand and unlocks its deadbolt once it’s verified your identity.
A sensor in Philips’ 5000-series lock scans the pattern of veins in your palm, an unchanging physical attribute that’s unique to you, same as a fingerprint. But unlike a fingerprint reader, you don’t need to make physical contact with the sensor for the lock to operate. Additionally it can be unlocked with a PIN code, including one-time-use PINs, the Philips app or a physical key.
Another really innovative feature is when you’re inside your home, Philips’ Grab & Go technology features a proximity sensor on the lock’s interior escutcheon. When the sensor detects your hand reaching for the door handle or lever, it will automatically unlock the door for you.
The Philips WiFi Palm Recognition Smart Deadbolt costs $360 and is currently available.
I also really liked this other door lock for practical reasons that we all deal with — coming home with arms full of grocery bags and fumbling to open the door. Being able to unlock your door by simply facing it, as if it knows exactly who you are, would be a huge help. Lockly launched a new residential smart lock that supports facial recognition technology, the Lockly Visage.
This is even more convenient than using a fingerprint reader or Apple Home Key to unlock your door but the Lockly Visage also supports both of those options as well. And you can always also unlock it with a keypad or physical key. This Matter-enabled smart lock will be available this summer for $349.
Smart Appliances
CES was heavily influenced by AI theme this year, including smart home. Panasonic announced a new collaboration with Fresco, a smart kitchen platform leader, to introduce an advanced cooking AI assistant for Panasonic kitchen appliances. This will begin with the new Panasonic HomeChef 4-in-1 multi-oven.
The AI assistant will be able to customize recipes based on dietary preferences and restrictions, ingredient substitutions based on what’s available in your pantry, and adjustments of serving sizes and cooking settings.
Revolution Cooking’s new Macrowave Oven is the perfect replacement for a microwave, air fryer, countertop oven, and broiler in one. This appliance is smart enough to seamlessly switch between microwaving leftovers and air-frying wings with the touch of an LCD screen. It also comes with an impressive price tag of $1,800 as well.
My favorite kitchen appliance has to be the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker. It claims infuse ribs, chicken, and more with authntic backyard barbecue flavor, with the genuine smoke of on-board, burning-hot wood pellets. And thanks to a clever feature dubbed Active Smoke Filtration, the smoke is absorbed and neutralized using its own version of a catalytic converter. This is a first-of-its-kind countertop cooker that can smoke your meat without smoking you out of the kitchen. The GE Profile Indoor Smoker is available now at nationwide retailers.
Both Samsung and LG showcased their new all-in-one washer and dryer combos, complete with AI integrations to optimize laundry cycles and reduce energy use.
Smart Home Robots
Samsung revamped Ballie, its home robot companion, which failed to take off after being introduced at CES 4 years ago. Ballie is a round, smart home hub that can patrol your home using its built-in camera. It also has a built-in projector that can project images on walls, floors and ceilings.
Ecovacs. mentioned above for a new robot vacuum/mop, launched a new model of its window cleaning robot that can reach new places. The Winbot W2 Omni comes with a portable station that carries a battery so you can use it to clean windows inside and out.
And if pool cleaning when you’d rather be lounging on the pool is your thing, Beabot is launching a new AquaSense Pro robot pool cleaner. Not only can it clean pool floors and walls but also the water surface and clarify water. It’s available for pre-order at $1,699.
As far as robot lawnmowers go, virtual boundaries were a definite trend at CES 2024. As I’m a yard guy I find the robot lawnmowers interesting even though I enjoy mowing my lawn. If I was looking to finally retire my lawnmower and buy a robot though, I’d consider one of these: Aiper Horizon U1, Segway’s Navimow i Series, Ecovavs Goat GX-600 or the Dreame Roboticmower A1.
As you can see, there was plenty of really neat stuff at CES this year. What I’ve covered here is barely the tip of the iceberg of the tens of thousands of products on display. It was great to see Matter taking more of a role in products and product development. AI was also very prominent in a lot of the new tech.
If you’re familiar with CES, what were your favorite products or devices? Have you ever attended CES? Is there a specific area of interest at CES other than smart home? It’s hard to stick to just one as I’m also intrigued by home entertainment, robotics, sports technology and others. What are your favorites outside smart home? Are there other smart home products you would add to my list above? Are you already using them or plan to?
Let Debbie and I know what you think in the comments, DMs and emails as we really enjoy hearing from you. Thanks again to all those following Debbie and I through our home building journey. It’s great to hear your success stories and suggestions as we move through the process. And if you like the content I’m posting each week, don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow.’
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