The best tech to buy at CES 2023, from digital tattoos to smarter smartwatches
More than 100,000 CES attendees have crammed into the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding facilities to kick the tires on tomorrow's tech today.
With nearly four million square feet of showroom floor space, it's virtually impossible to visit all 3,200 or so exhibitors, but despite the enormity of the show, I've already spent time with some seriously cool gadgets and gear.
(And not including some wacky tech, like a breathing pillow, the Fufuly from Yukai Engineering, which expands and contracts when you hug it, or the Withings U-Scan, which claims to analyze your urine at home for nutritional and menstrual purposes.)
The following are items I would actually buy (if and) when they debut in 2023.
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'Smell-o-Vision' for VR?
You can see 360-degree content in virtual reality, hear spatialized audio, and even experience haptic feedback when "touching" items in VR worlds – but smell may be next.
OVR Technology, a Vermont-based startup that focuses on "digital scent technology," chose CES to launch ION 3, a wearable cartridge-based scent solution optimized for virtual and augmented reality, mobile, and PC desktop.
Resembling an old-school headset you'd wear around your neck (with one arm extending to sit near your nostrils), the device connects via Bluetooth and can emit aromas, like a perfume, in different combinations to create "thousands" of unique scents.
For example, imagine the aroma of, say, lavender while meditating in VR, or the smell of gun smoke during a first-person shooter game.
Let’s see if this actually coms out, though: I distinctly remember CES in 2001, when I sat through a demo of DigiScents' iSmell, a PC accessory that was more or less the same idea as ION 3, but the company folded before the product was released.
Digital tats
Not everyone wants permanent tattoos – myself included – but I'd be lying if I wasn't super impressed with some of the ink my friends have.
Prinker has a solution: temporary digital tattoos. The South Korean company has a small handheld device that lets you apply a temp tat in just one second or so.
Simply position over a body part and it "prints" high-quality ink onto your skin. The tattoos are waterproof, says the company, but can be washed off with a cleanser.
Not only does the companion app include more than 12,000 existing designs, it also lets you design your own.
Resembling a tall stapler, the main tattooing device sells for $279, and ink cartridges to produce about 1,000 tattoos costs $119.
A smarter smartwatch
Citizen's CZ Smart YouQ leverages IBM Watson machine learning technology and scientific research from NASA.
Consider it a wearable self-care advisor that doesn't just monitor your activity, health and sleep, but provides real-time biofeedback and predicts patterns (of, say, fatigue) and then offers customized insights and personalized strategies to be your best self. The CZ YouQ companion app offers a deeper dive on the data.
The Citizen CZ Smart will be out by March, starting at $350.
Wireless TV
If I'm able to afford this one (cough), not only is the LG Signature OLED M television a 97-inch TV, but it’s billed as the world’s first consumer television that lets you wirelessly transmit video and audio, in up to 4K resolution and 120Hz motion, from its Zero Connect box, which you can place elsewhere in the room.
This is all designed to reduce clutter around the TV, so instead of cables and cords sticking out, all your components are plugged into the Zero Connect, away from the TV, like a cable box, Blu-ray player, video game console, and so on.
No word yet on pricing and availability.
One wild laptop
When is a laptop more than a laptop?
Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i is the world's first full-screen (13.3-inch) dual-screen OLED laptop, which can be used in several scenarios, for work on play.
For example, when opened, the bottom screen could have a virtual keyboard (which you can swap out for various languages) or place down the magnetic physical keyboard (included) to use it like a traditional laptop.
Or jot down notes on the bottom screen with the stylus (also included), while engaged in a Zoom call on the top screen. Or why not open the dual screen, like a book, to read it like a digital magazine? You get the idea.
The Yoga Book 9i will be out by June.
Follow Marc on Twitter for his "Tech Tip of the Day" posts: @marc_saltzman. Email him or subscribe to his Tech It Out podcast. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.