CES Liveblog Days 3-4: Smart Vibrator, Robot Arms, and More

Welcome to our CES 2020 liveblog! The WIRED crew is on the ground here in Las Vegas to touch, test, prod, and fondle all of the latest doodads, robot bartenders, underwater drones, and exoskeletons. This liveblog is the place where we'll report all of our findings. We'll have videos, photos, written dispatches, and since we're in the latter half of CES, we'll probably start to get a little goofy.

Refresh the page every once in a while and you'll see the newest piece of news appear at the top of the page. Since it's the last day of CES, our updates will be a less frequent, but we still have a few things to add!

• The Very Best of CES Awards
• Sex Tech Companies Are Having Fun at CES
• CES Liveblog Day 1
• CES Liveblog Day 2
• CES Liveblog Days 3 and 4 (You are here!)
• 10 Neatest Things We've Seen at CES
• 10 More Extraordinary Gadgets at CES
• 8 More of the Smartest Things at CES
• Sony's Concept Car Debuts at CES
• All Our CES 2020 Articles

CES Attendees: Come visit WIRED HQ, located at the Yardbird in the Venetian.

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—Jeffrey Van Camp

—Meghann Farnsworth

“[That sign] says we’re in the health and fitness section, but all that means is we’re trying to figure out what we can do to not die,” said the blunt and hilarious Taylor Speegle of the Centers for Age Control.

I saw more than a few devices that claim to discover your fitness age at CES, but Speegle’s AgeMeter is currently being deployed by Harvard Medical School, among other institutions, and will have a consumer version later this spring. After taking a test that will evaluate factors like hearing, agility, and reaction speed, the AgeMeter will offer actionable suggestions like memory training. Spoiler alert: We are still probably going to die (for now).

—Adrienne So

If you hate remembering codes or can’t choose a better one than 01234, Kwikset’s got a door lock for you. The Halo Touch uses an off-the-shelf smartphone fingerprint sensor, but Kwikset representatives didn’t say which one. It was about as quick to unlock as the touch sensor on my late-2018 MacBook Air. It’s only the deadbolt component, so you’re not locked into using a particular handle or knob, and it fits into a standard-sized hole in the door. The rep on duty said it’s primarily a Wi-Fi connected device that also has Bluetooth, so you can make your connected phone automatically unlock or lock it when you’re a certain distance away.

Given security concerns around Bluetooth's susceptibility to hacking (or an intruder replicating a fingerprint), I asked if there were any security measures that go beyond those already on other Bluetooth smart locks. Sadly, I did not get an answer that boiled down to a “yes.”

Is it convenient? Yeah. You’ll want to give it a look if you are already fine with the idea of a Bluetooth smart lock. If you're hesitant, the Halo Touch won’t change your mind. The Kwikset Halo Touch will cost $249 when it launches later this year.

—Matt Jancer

Most of us in the Gear team at WIRED work remotely, so CES is one of the few chances where we get to see each other (this year, for the very first time!). It’d be great if we could see each other a little more—outside the weekly video calls. Spatial is a company that aims to help. It's a platform that lets you hop into a virtual world to collaborate with coworkers—you can literally see them floating around from the torso up.

Okay, so it might not be as helpful for our Gear team—it’s not like we’ll be able to write any better—but you can imagine how it can change the dynamic for certain industries. For example, if someone wants to better explain exactly where a product can be improved, just hop into Spatial and point it out precisely on a virtual 3D render. You’ll need a virtual or augmented reality headset, but that’s exactly what makes Spatial so unique—it’s cross platform, so anyone with a Microsoft HoloLens, Oculus Quest, or Magic Leap One, or another supported virtual or augmented reality headset can join the same session.

It’s for enterprise customers only at the moment, but I hope tech like this replaces all video calls one day. It’s just a little more personal.

—Julian Chokkattu

Exoskeletons are a unique combo of robo-human hardware. Yes, it’s awesome if they’re shiny and huge, but it’s not actually a consumer device if it’s hot, doesn’t fit in your car, and you never want to wear it. The Roam Robotics ski exoskeleton is currently on preorder for $3,500 and is made from molded plastic and sewn fabric.

The leg braces weigh 2.5 pounds and the battery pack weighs about 10 pounds. I suffered through one ski season with a full leg brace, and when I tested the exo on a ski simulator, there was no comparison. I could move my legs freely and the exo provided an amazing amount of squat support. Skiing is more a passion or a lifestyle than a hobby. This might just be a way to get more people with knee injuries back on the slopes.

—Adrienne So

Smart beds! I haven’t entered this world yet, but SleepNumber’s new Climate360 bed has made me consider it. As its name suggests, the bed can warm or cool your body down—that’s not particularly new for SleepNumber, but this is the first time each side of the bed has its own personal microclimate; there’s no need to argue if you like it warm and your partner likes it cold. By default, it warms you up before bed, cools you during the night, and warms you up right before you wake up, but all of this is customizable in the companion app.

SleepNumber claims it helps you fall asleep faster and stay asleep, but I’ll have to wait until 2021 to see if that’s true as it’s not available until then. Oh wait, it costs $8,000, so maybe not.

—Julian Chokkattu

A 4-pack of Senstroke sensors costs $260.

—Louryn Strampe

Most sleep trackers can tell you you’re getting poor sleep, but few of them have any actionable suggestions beyond going to bed earlier. The Awarables monitor focuses on curable insomnia, not sleep apnea. It’s worn around your chest, not your wrist, so it won’t mistake your sleep flailings as being awake. It has a plethora of clinical-grade sensors, including a gyroscope to monitor your position and light sensors to correlate your sleep to environmental changes. It uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and analytics software to tell you that your sleep is deeper when you’re on your left side or you need to go to sleep at 2 am instead of 11 to consolidate your sleep blocks. Here’s to a good night’s rest.

—Adrienne So

Tali is a smart motorcycle helmet, and it will have to be for the price. When $500 can buy you a Shoei RF-1200—all the full-face motorcycle helmet you’d ever need—asking $800-1,000 for a helmet lands you square in the premium section of the market. To the Tali’s credit, it comes with features you usually have to add as aftermarket accessories to most helmets, such as in-helmet speakers and intercom and a photochromic visor that darkens as the sun shines brighter. If you link it to the Tali app on your phone, you can use voice commands to make calls, change music, and hear navigation directions without having to mount your phone to your handlebars or fumble with volume controls.

The helmet’s most eye-catching feature are its integrated lights. They mimic those on the motorcycle and can synchronize through a built-in Bluetooth 4.0 connection. When you flick on the bike’s headlight(s), the white light on the front of the helmet also lights up. The taillight/brake light activates the helmet’s red rear light, and yellow lights on either side flash along with the turn signals.

Tali’s in the process of snagging DOT and CE safety certifications from the U.S. and European Union, respectively. Helmets in the U.S., and much of the world, don’t need to be safety rated to be street-legal, but it's certainly nice!

I was dying to test it out to see how it performed, but the concept at CES wasn’t fully functional, so I’ll have to wait until we get closer to the planned launch at the end of this year. You can learn more about it here.

—Matt Jancer

Everyone makes wireless chargers—hell, even PopSockets has one—but the Base Station Pro from Nomad is different. Traditional wireless chargers require you to place your phone, watch, or wireless earbuds case exactly in the right spot. A little bit to the left? You might wake up to a dead phone that didn't charge. Nomad's wireless charger uses new technology called FreePower from a company called Aira, and it's wireless charging rebuilt from the ground up.

On this particular device, you can place up to three devices on it (it's Qi certified), but you don't need to be precise—just pop your phone or device anywhere on the mat, and it'll juice up (each device will be capped at 5 watts). Even better, traditional wireless chargers use up a good deal of energy during the day, even when you're not charging anything; with FreePower, energy waste is next to nothing.

Nomad hasn't confirmed pricing or availability, but expect it to cost somewhere between $150 to $200 and to go on sale sometime in 2020. You can sign up for email updates on the Base Station Pro here. Down the road, we'll likely see Aira's tech in wireless chargers from other companies.

Cats are getting a lot of attention at CES this year, but one robotic cat servant in particular caught my eye. It’s the Feeder-Robot from AutoPets, the team behind Litter-Robot (the robot that is a cat toilet). Unlike other automated cat feeders, the Feeder-Robot is actually a dog feeder, too. It’s designed to work with any size of kibble thanks to a clever little internal scooper, and some lasers.

Yep, the Feeder keeps track of how much food is in the hopper with custom built laser sensors rather than more commonly used weight sensors. That way the Feeder can easily handle kibbles of all shapes, sizes, and weights—and still provide accurate data about your soft fur baby.

You control the device from an app which gives you info on when your cats have eaten, how much was dispensed etc. But the Feeder Robot also has physical controls you can use to tweak those very same settings. It’s a basic thing to include but it’s very nice to have so you don’t need everyone in the house to fiddle with the app when it’s time to feed the cats.

Speaking of which, the Feeder Robot can be set to dispense food manually, or at specific times a day, or just a certain number of times per day. That last option is great for cats who don’t like set feeding times but also have trouble with overindulging in those delicious little meat and fish pellets.

—Jess Grey

It's not easy to get excited about hard drives, but if you're a proponent of security—and happen to need extra storage space—then you'll be happy to learn that Samsung's new portable solid-state drive (called the T7 Touch Portable SSD), comes with a built-in fingerprint scanner. It's not the first of its kind, but it's about the size of a business card, doesn't look gaudy, and comes in options of 500 GB ($130), 1 TB ($230), or 2 TB ($400). It uses a USB 3.2 Type-C port, and that helps it net transfer speeds up to around 1.05 GB per second.

—Julian Chokkattu

WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode explored the new sexual health and wellness area of CES, which was allowed on a trial basis this year after one sex device maker had her innovation award rescinded at last year’s show. Goode and the entrepreneur, Lora DiCarlo, toured some of the health and wellness section and talked about taboos around sexuality.

Read: Sex Tech Companies Are Having More Fun Than the Rest of Us at CES

—Jeffrey Van Camp

I needed a pick me up, so naturally I went to find Coca Cola's new energy drink, aptly named Coke Energy. It has about four times the caffeine of a traditional can of Coke, so if you see a burst of liveblog entries or tweets from me in the next hour or two, you'll know why. I got the Cherry version, which tastes like Cherry Coke mixed with a Gatorade. I kind of like it!

Coke Energy hasn't been out long, only being available in select countries like Japan, but they tell me that starting January 20 you can order the drink via Amazon's Alexa in the U.S., and it will hit retail stores on January 28.

—Julian Chokkattu

Our EIC Nick Thompson spoke with Kayvon Beykpour, product lead at Twitter, and streamed it on Twitter's Periscope from our WIRED HQ at the Yardbird in the Venetian.

—Jeffrey Van Camp

By far, my favorite part of CES is Eureka Park, where the smallest startups and brightest university students come to show us all what we’ll be wearing and using in 5 - 10 years. I was very interested to see a lot of smart home security gear that doesn’t have hackable cameras or microphones.

Two of these were Oval Home’s small, multi-purpose sensors, which can detect temperature, light, humidity, motion, or water. The starter kit comes with one hub and two sensors, which can detect anything from a forbidden medicine cabinet opening, or a leaky bathtub faucet. They are available for preorder starting at $50.

Another is the Owl Home, which detects smoke, carbon dioxide, motion, and sound to alert you of a stranger’s presence. Maybe we’re finally starting to realize that maybe the best way to keep your family safe is to not invite a Wi-Fi-enabled camera into every room.

—Adrienne So

I saw the Nreal Light mixed reality glasses at CES 2019, and in just a year they have improved so much. There’s no longer a CPU puck you need to carry around with it (just plug it into an Android phone) and the glasses can finally fold! They project virtual objects into the real world and you can walk around and interact with them. Nreal’s latest feature, called Nebula, lets you run Android apps in a virtual space. I was able to boot up Netflix, YouTube, and Instagram, and I could place each app wherever I wanted, so all I needed to do was turn my head to multitask.

The glasses are lightweight and comfy, and Nreal offers magnetic prescription lenses you can easily attach so you can remove your glasses to use them. I’m still not sure who’s going to want to buy and use Nreal—the features are niche and it’s not the most attractive piece of hardware—but the tech is improving at a rapid rate; I can’t wait to see what they’ll have in store in 2021.

At $499, the Nreal Light glasses are surprisingly affordable considering all the tech inside. They'll be available in early 2020.

—Julian Chokkattu

There is a bunch of motion capture technology in the fitness section here at Eureka Park at CES. My personal pick is the Yoganotch personal yoga assistant. Cue up one of their yoga classes, wear the notches, and yoga-centric AI takes in data from 3D sensors to correct your form.

If you like to follow along with Yoga with Adriene, you’ll now be able to do so with sensors that tell you to bend forward just a little more, or get your butt in line with the rest of you. That way, you’re much less likely to injure yourself.

The Yoganotch starter kit costs $200, along with a $8/month subscription. Units will ship later this year.

—Adrienne So

Your ears might need glasses, or at least that’s what the team at Nura claims. The popular Kickstarter-backed company’s new in-ears listen to the way you hear, mapping your eardrum and inner ears’ responsiveness and shaping the sound to fit it. The demo they showed me was pretty convincing; they shared several other journalists’ hearing profiles with me, and I’m convinced that those people can’t hear a thing. Professional hubris or legitimate scientific proof I’ve got “2020” hearing, I’m not sure, but the wireless earbuds sounded pretty fantastic when switched to my profile.

You can preorder the Nuraloop for $199. They ship in March. Read our review of the original Nuraphones to learn more about the tech.

—Parker Hall

One of my favorite trends at this year's CES is the prevalence of kids toys that mix digital and physical. The Tori board is one of my favorites. It's a magnetic board that pairs with a small portable magnet which you insert into various game controllers. The controllers—for example, a spacecraft—are then embedded in the company's tablet-based software and come to life, so to speak. You fly the digital representation of your spacecraft by moving the real one in your hand. There are a variety of games, ranging from the spacecraft game Explorer to the Angry Birds-like Jungle Rescue—and Supreme Builder, a Minecraft-ey block-building game.

There are plenty of opportunities for kids to build their own controllers or decorate objects with the game (by using pen and paper and then scanning). Parents can track screen time and set challenges using the app. Right now Tori is focused on fun. Your kids will learn some on soft skills, but it's easy to see how the company could expand the platform into more explicitly teaching-focused games.

The Tori Explorer Pack costs $129 at Amazon. It's aimed at kids ages 5-8.

—Scott Gilbertson

This phone case might look quite ordinary, but it’s made out of plants! It’s called Organicore, and it’s Incipio’s new line of sustainable cases with zero plastic. The cases are 100 percent compostable material, and Incipio said it still manages to offer 6-foot drop protection thanks to the raised bezel on the sides, which protects your phone’s screen. Even the packaging is eco-friendly—it’s recyclable and uses water-based ink.

At the moment, these cases are only available for the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max in a range of colors, but Incipio said it will support more products in the coming months. The Incipio Organicore costs $40.

—Julian Chokkattu

Honestly, I (and two other WIRED staffers) body-wedged our way through the crowd at Amazon Auto’s booth just to check out the Rivian R1T for our own selfish curiosity, but when I heard that the R1T (the pickup) and R1S (the SUV) will be the first production vehicles to have Alexa Home integrated with Alexa Auto, I pounced.

Few appreciate how significant of a shift it is to link automotive smart assistants to home and phone. That means you can ask your Fire TV to tell you whether your Rivian is charging, how much battery level there is, and how many miles that level will take you, said a Rivian spokesperson. And begin driving navigation to a hiking trailhead, and when you park in the visitor’s lot you can seamlessly pick up walking directions on your phone for the rest of the way. Or you could ask your Echo Show if you left something in your Rivian, which will display a live feed of the truck bed camera.

Alexa Auto is currently online-only. That’ll change with the Rivian, which will work without cell signal for requests that don’t rely on the cloud. So you won’t be able to ask Alexa to see the indoor cameras in your house or answer weird trivia questions when it’s offline, but you’ll still be able to work vehicle-specific actions, such as change system settings or pop open the front-end trunk. You’ll be able to buy the R1T for $69,000 and R1S for $72,500 at the very end of the year. No news yet if you’ll be able to buy things off Amazon with just the right combination of words as you go down the road, but knowing Amazon, it would be overjoyed if you bought two seasons of Life on Mars on the way home from work.

(Learn more about Amazon and Rivian's partnership.)

—Matt Jancer

Finally, OLED TVs are getting cheaper! Chinese brand Konka is one of a couple of brands sharing plans to launch a value-packed OLED model this year (Vizio has also announced its own model). The new OLEDs should put some pep in Konka’s step as it attempts to burst into the US market for the first time in 2020, having been a top five brand in China for years.

The company showed me two prototypes of the models that will hit shelves in the latter half of the year. One comes with a built-in soundbar, which is particularly exciting to the audio nerd inside me; I can’t tell you how often I see gorgeous TVs without a high-quality audio solution to go along with them. For shame!

—Parker Hall

Order in or cook? The answer for me is almost always order in, because I just don't have an innate desire to whip something up with my bare hands—especially when the hunger pangs kick in. Well, maybe robotic chef's arms can help? Samsung's Bot Chef is a pair of arms hanging from a kitchen cabinet. Sensors and cameras (and a little dose of artificial intelligence) tell the arms where things like the salt and pepper are, and I watched as the arms helped a (human) cook make a bowl of tofu salad.

Samsung calls it a collaborative robot, so it's not meant to cook from start to finish without any help, but it can take some tasks off your hands (and it could be of greater use in industrial applications). Its grips are sensitive enough to gently squeeze a little bit of hot sauce out of a bottle of Sriracha, and it can even open the cabinets above it to grab seasonings it might need. This is a concept, so don't expect it to see it at your posh friend's house anytime soon, but it is a reality that Samsung thinks we'll embrace in the near future.

—Julian Chokkattu

CES is, in a way, defined by products that answer questions nobody has ever asked; gadgets that are cool, but nobody truly needs. Well, Dabby is cool, and I need it.

How many times have you Googled whether a TV show is on Netflix or Hulu? How many times have you wanted to watch a show, only to find out that it isn’t on a streaming service you’re subscribed to? Dabby, a dongle-and-touchscreen entertainment system, uses AI and “deep search” to intelligently play any free or paid content online. That doesn’t mean just showing you where you can watch Friends these days. You can take it a step further and ask Dabby to “play the dracarys scene from Game of Thrones” and it’ll find a clip on YouTube.

Aside from the intuitive interface, my favorite feature is Dabby’s intelligent subscription manager. Visit the subscriptions tab and you’ll get recommendations for canceling streaming services you rarely use. Tap a toggle and you’re unsubscribed. Should you give it the power, Dabby can even automatically unsubscribe for you if you aren’t using a service frequently.

There are lots of other neat features, like a fun swiping motion to dictate what plays on your TV, or using the AI to stream clips from Instagram and Twitch, but the reason I like Dabby boils down to this: It's trying to solve a problem that I actually have.

You can preorder the Dabby for $399. It ships later this spring.

—Louryn Strampe

The Planty Cube from N.Thing is a modular vertical farm system designed to fit inside a standard, 40-foot shipping container. The hydroponic beds that slot into the wall racks are made for growing veggies (leafy greens mostly) in a contamination-free environment.

If you want to build a large-scale farm, you can do so, arranging and stacking up to 96 shipping containers filled with plants in all stages of life, from seed to harvest.

—Michael Calore

The new Weber Connect Smart Grilling Hub wants to turn you into a pit master. The Hub consists of a temperature probe which connects via wire to the actual hub. The hub then broadcasts to an accompanying app running on your favorite device. There are several competitors that do the same, but Weber's app offers considerably more hand-holding than others I've tested. It offers instructions on everything from how to set up your grill for indirect heat, to the best way to apply a rub. It'll let you know when to flip your cut, when it's done and how long your should let it rest.

You can preorder the Weber Connect Hub for $130 at Amazon. It should ship sometime in February or March.

—Scott Gilbertson

Every company wants to make its booth a spectacle at CES. Royole made a tech tree to do it.

—Jeffrey Van Camp

This is the Julia from CookingPal, a countertop appliance that performs multiple cooking tasks at once. It boils, steams, blends, and weighs ingredients, among other things. If you’ve heard of the Thermomix, this gadget works like one of those, except the Julia is controlled by a ruggedized Alexa-powered tablet that provides a voice-controlled guided cooking experience. The recipes in the tablet app are decent, too. I tasted a sample of the mushroom-potato soup, and it was excellent—properly seasoned even, which is surprising because guided cooking apps tend to be timid with the salt.

The Julia ships later this year for less than $1,000.

—Michael Calore

Julian takes a look at the Ovis AI-powered suitcase that can follow you.

—Jeffrey Van Camp

Sarcos’ Guardian XO not only has a badass name, but it’s also one of the coolest things I’ve seen at CES so far. It’s one of the few (if not the only) non-tethered exoskeleton suit, and it looks like a machine straight out of a movie like Edge of Tomorrow. It allows a human operator to hop inside and carry up to 200 pounds, without feeling anything more than the weight of a small backpack. That means almost zero strain on the person’s back.

You can freely move around—Sarcos said it only takes a few minutes to learn how to use the suit—and the arms have different types of grips you can attach to help carry varied, heavy items. It’s powered by two 12-pound batteries that last around 8 hours; they’re hot swappable though, so you don’t need to wait for the suit to charge back up to continue working.

Delta Airlines will be testing the alpha version of the suit this month, where workers will use it to lift luggage, propellers, massive tires, or push heavy items out of the way. Sarcos plans to have a commercial version in the hands of various other manufacturers as well by the end of 2020. It really feels like we're one step closer to a real-life Iron Man.

—Julian Chokkattu

What's cooler than riding up to a party on a classic Indian bike? Riding up to a party on your Indian with a freshly smoked rack of ribs in the sidecar, of course. That was the inspired thinking that led Thor Drake of See See Custom Motorcycles to create a bike that has a Traeger smoker in the side car.

Yes, you can smoke ribs in it while you ride. Drake smoked some ribs on his way to the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. The grilling, smoking hog is currently on display here at CES in the Goal Zero booth. Goal Zero's Yeti 1400 battery system powers the automated features in the smoker.

—Scott Gilbertson

One of the coolest and most practical things I saw today was the MysteryVibe Poco. It’s an itty bitty little vibrator that aims to redefine the portable bullet vibe by packing it with power and features you don’t see very often in travel-sized sex toys.

Clad in a soft blue silicone, the Poco has two internal joints so you can shape it to fit you. Plus, and this is always a plus, it’s a gender neutral toy. No “for men” or “for women” language on the packaging. It was even designed to be gender neutral from the get-go.

The Poco connects to the MysteryVibe app via Bluetooth. From there, you can create custom vibration patterns, fine tune intensity, and frequency of each part of the pattern and save it to the device. Most vibes this size come with a couple preset patterns and there or four intensity levels, but each of the two motors in the Poco features 16-levels of intensity.

The MysteryVibe Poco vibrator is available now for $90.

—Jess Grey

One of our senior reviewers, Adrienne So, literally went swimming on the CES show floor with the help of Sublue's underwater electric scooter.

—Jeffrey Van Camp

If you work out regularly, your wirefree headphone case is probably a bit gross. Klipsch’s new T5 Sport workout buds solve this problem with a built-in moisture-wicking section in the top of their tough Pelican-style case. Your buds will stay cleaner longer, and the added protection of the case means you can take them with you anywhere from the gym to gnarly off-the-beaten-path adventures.

Check out our favorite wireless earbuds here.

—Parker Hall

• The Very Best of CES Awards
• Liveblog Day 2: Get the latest from Las Vegas
• Gallery: 10 more extraordinary gadgets we've spotted at CES
• Bell and Hyundai soar into the air taxi race
• Amazon doubles down on Ring partnerships with law enforcement
• Ivanka Trump's future of work isn't for workers
• The Inventors Hall of Fame honors pioneering brainiacs
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