More Weird Tech Gadgets From This Year's CES

Reading time: 5 minutes

Would you use these eight gadgets?

BMW iX stream
Zen for meditation
Virtual Ride Fitness Bike
Lumini PM Smart Mirror
Ainenne for sleeping babies
Petnow for your dog’s nose print
a smart door for your home
HomeChef 7-in-1 Compact Oven

They were all on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year after the influential tech show returned to Las Vegas after a COVID-19 hiatus.

This is the second of our two-part series looking at some of the items on offer.

Advertising

Can’t decide on the color of your car?

No problem. BMW now offers a car whose color you can change as often as you like.

The BMW iX Flow replaces the traditional exterior paint with E-Ink technology. The electronic ink of BMW’s iX prototype uses microcapsules with negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. The pigment microcapsules are no thicker than a traditional paint layer.

With the push of a button, you can cycle through any shade between bright white and deep black. Alternatively, you can run continuous animated patterns on the outside.

The BMW iX Flow will become essential for those who need to coordinate the color of their car with their outfit.

Let yourself be seduced by the iX Flow here because you can’t buy it yet.

Zen for meditation

Are you struggling to find an attractive device to encourage your meditation?

French company Morphée has announced Zen, a mobile device for quick anti-stress breaks. Its smooth pebble shape fits comfortably in the palm of your hand.

Simply plug your headphones into Zen to start one of 72 two-minute meditation sessions. Zen offers six themes: dynamic relaxation, deep relaxation, immersive journeys, sounds of nature, relaxing music and Chrono Zen. Morpheus ordered music just for Zen.

Supposedly, the meditation apps on my smartphone aren’t good enough. So I’m supposed to schlepp around a dedicated device?

Buy Zen here.

Virtual Ride Fitness Bike

Can’t go out for a bike ride due to COVID-19, rain, low temperatures, or dangerous, crazy traffic?

Do not worry.

LG’s new Virtual Ride places three 55-inch vertical OLED displays in front of a stationary exercise bike to visually immerse cyclists in their workouts. The screen will also show your exercise performance statistics. Built-in Cinematic Sound OLED (CSOs) technology contributes to the immersive feeling.

If you are already bored with the increasingly fancy and attractive exercise bikes with more modest screens, you have plenty of space and money is not an issue, then the Virtual Ride is for you.

You can buy the virtual tour here soon.

Lumini PM Smart Mirror

Do your facial imperfections sometimes look like Mount Everest to you?

The Lululab Lumini PM can help remedy the situation. It works like your personal skin assistant. The smart mirror analyzes your face for various attributes. The accompanying mobile app uses LuluLab’s artificial intelligence (AI) beauty technology to recommend cosmetics, skincare solutions, and healthcare products based on your personal data.

It’s hard to believe that the Lumini PM is better than a reasonably experienced consultant at your favorite cosmetics store.

Buy Lumini PM here.

Ainenne for sleeping babies

Do you get anxious too quickly when your baby cries a little before going to sleep?

Ainenne is the world’s first baby-friendly bedside lamp with sleep training capabilities. It was developed by analyzing thousands of baby cry patterns and related parental data. Its algorithm interprets babies’ crying pattern to infer a baby’s feelings based on how they cry.

By keeping track of your baby’s sleeping and crying habits, Ainenne captures your baby’s sleep patterns and can provide recommendations that you can view on the accompanying app.

The built-in LED light increases in intensity to achieve a pleasant wake-up call for your baby.

Billions of babies have managed to fall asleep in a dark room and rock gently, sometimes with soothing songs. Do we need to complicate this process too much?

Buy ainenne here.

Petnow for your dog’s nose print

Are you panicked at the thought of losing your dog?

The Petnow app uses your dog’s nose print to identify him if he gets lost. This approach is much cheaper and faster than using implanted microchips.

You start by using the camera to photograph your dog’s nose. The app then uses AI to analyze the dog’s unique nose wrinkles. These remain unchanged over time, just like our fingerprints.

The nose print can solve the problem if someone else claims your dog is theirs. If you register your dog, someone who found your dog can contact you to return your dog.

This technology seems overkill. Everyone can recognize their dog and distinguish it from similar dogs of the same breed.

Buy Petnow here.

A smart door for your home

Does your home automation system need a smarter door with lots of built-in features?

The Masonite M-Pwr smart door consists of a Ring Video doorbell, Yale Home smart lock, motion-sensing LED courtesy light and emergency backup battery. It’s powered by your home, not multiple disposable batteries that you need to change at different intervals. There is an associated app to control devices and check their status.

What happens if one of these components fails? Who are you calling? Do you need a door smarter than you?

Buy the M-Pwr smart door here.

HomeChef 7-in-1 Compact Oven

Is your kitchen missing some of the latest gadgets?

The Panasonic HomeChef 7-in-1 compact oven can seemingly do it all. Here is the list of its cooking capabilities:

convection cooking
steam
air fry
steam convection
slow cooking
ferment
disinfect

It incorporates an 800ml water tank and a boiler to support this versatility. The 7-in-1 compact oven offers 18 preset meal options from a single four-button control system.

Calling this oven compact is overkill given its spacious 20 liter capacity. This gadget could save a lot of kitchen space if you remove other appliances from your kitchen. I wonder how many owners will do this?

The HomeChef 7-in-1 Compact Oven may be the ultimate gift for the foodie who has almost everything. For everyone else, it’s too exaggerated.

Buy the HomeChef 7-in-1 Compact Oven here.

Yogi Schulz has over 40 years of experience in information technology in various industries. Yogi works a lot in the oil industry. He manages projects that arise from changing business needs, the need to take advantage of technological opportunities and mergers. His specialties include IT strategy, web strategy and project management.

Yogi is a Troy Media Opinion leader. For maintenance requests, Click here.

The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are their own and do not inherently or expressly reflect the views of our publication.

© Troy Media
Troy Media is an editorial content provider for news outlets and its own hosted community media across Canada.

More Weird Tech Gadgets From This Year’s CES