Farhad Manjoo makes an interesting point in his New York Times column on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He writes about how, having devolved into sound and fury
signifying, if not nothing then not much, this year’s show seems downright desultory.
Why? It’s a little like the late-‘90s Internet 1.0 bubble, during which
VC money was everywhere and revenue models were fantasy. The issue then was, among other things, reach and bandwidth.
But there’s something similar now, in that there is
an embarrassment of technological riches, but there’s a sense that it’s out of the oven early, and that the consumer base isn’t ready yet. This is particularly true in connected
devices, with the obvious example being Apple Watch (or maybe Fitbit Blaze, shown at CES). The issues, as in the late ’90s, are a sense of redundancy in some cases, and real market propositions
for consumers in many cases. It’s “Prototype World,” Manjoo writes. “They are all pushing the limits of what machines can currently accomplish and working to come up with
business models that consumers will stomach.”
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Big news came from Facebook’s Oculus, which is going to market with its Rift headgear. But, like web video products 15
years ago, it’s not going to be a sales-volume monster at $600 a pair for a device which may not be able to interface with your computer given the data requirements. And the Touch haptic
handsets aren’t coming to market for another year. So, that kind of makes it a beta.
Other car news is also a non-starter right now. After all kinds of speculation we
saw the concept from the mysterious Farraday Future, funded by a Chinese gazillionaire. It’s a ridiculously conceptual electric supercar that looks like it was drawn by my hyperactive nephew
after eating a box of Reese’s Pieces. But that’s subjective. Or how about a robotic aero-drone you can actually ride? I see a deal with Amazon somewhere — instead of your purchase
being delivered to you, you get delivered to your purchase.
On the opposite end of the “okay, cool, but” spectrum is Chevrolet’s new all-electric Bolt,
which, coming in at $30,000 after subsidies, is real news. That’s maybe less because of the window sticker than the range: 200 miles.
Technology interface and
price point challenges, and the “beta” feel of some of the new gadgetry aside, the key in the near term is whether there’s a consumer market now, ever, for connected apparel; cars
that let you lower your thermostat, or have groceries delivered to it; watches that let you check your blood sugar; virtual reality concerts from iHeart and Universal (helmet not included); and God
knows how many drones.
Under Armour would certainly not have done a joint venture with HTC for the $400 HealthBox (it’s a biometric wearable-devices toolkit, that
includes a smartband that tracks daily activity and sleep) if it hadn’t determined there’s a big potential market for it. Potential. Ditto its Heart Band that you wear around your chest
(that will be fun) when you’re running those splits, and a special scale that reads both weight and body fat percentages. How about a $150 sneaker that tracks and stores things like time and
date, distance, and all kinds of workout data.
Yes, sure, there are always early adopters, some of whom suffer early adoption as a socio-pathology, who just have to take the
tiger cruise with generation-one of anything, maybe even Ehang’s autonomous aerial drone that can carry someone up to 260 pounds, when they sell that thing. If they offer test flights at next
year’s CES, I’ll go.