Y&RNYC's Senior Brand Planner Matt Colangelo reports back from CES 2014 on the latest product and industry trends, and their implications

1. CES 2014
3 Days in 3 Minutes
Matt Colangelo,
Senior Brand Planner

2. 3,200 EXHIBITORS AT CES
20,000 NEW PRODUCT
ANNOUNCEMENTS
160,000 TOTAL ATTENDEES
SUMMARIZED IN…
3 PRODUCT TRENDS
3 INDUSTRY TRENDS
3 IMPLICATIONS

3. Y&R
CES OVERVIEW | JANUARY 2014
3 Product Trends

4. TREND #1: WEARABLE DEVICES
Products to watch:
Razer Nabu, Misfit Shine,
Google Glass (of course),
Sony Core (removable chip)
Wearable devices were the “next big thing” at
CES 2014, according to CNET, Wired, and
almost everyone else in Las Vegas. We saw
new activity-tracking wristbands (LG Lifeband,
Sony Core, Misfit Shine), smartwatches
(Pebble Steel, Intel SmartWatch, Neptune
Pine), combo devices (Razer Nabu),
headbands (Muse), and of course glasses
(Google Glass, Epson Moverio, OptInvent
ORA). Which form factor and use case will win
is anyone’s guess – it depends on our appetite
for information overload and how brands
design around it – but one thing is for sure:
wearables are the future.

5. TREND #2: CONNECTED ECOSYSTEMS
Products to watch: Belkin
WeMo Maker Kit, Sen.se
Mother, Goji Smartlock,
Canary Home Monitor
Before we can build a connected world (which
won’t be possible until universal WiFi), we have
to build connected ecosystems: living rooms,
bedrooms, kitchens, and cars. At CES this
year, we saw many new devices designed to
talk to each other and, more importantly, talk to
you. The most awarded products were Belkin’s
WeMo “Maker Kit”, which allows you to create
your own connected home with Belkin
products, LG and Samsung’s smart home
appliances, and Sen.se’s “Mother”, a motherlike home-sensing system that lets you monitor
various things in your home (e.g. motion,
location, temperature).

6. TREND #3: DIY CUSTOMIZATION
Products to watch: Formlab
printer (precision), Da Vinci
printer (cheap), Sculpteo
(offsite, cloud-based 3D
printing)
2014 is the second year of a 20-year revolution in DIY
customization and prototyping. Behind this trend is a
new generation of digital natives and makers who
want to 3D-print their own coffee mugs and connect
their own home appliances. Online communities will
drive this trend forward, as they share files (e.g. 3D
CAD files, Arduino script, how-to guides) and best
practices. Some of the myriad technologies powering
this trend are activity trackers, Bluetooth, Smart
appliances, 3D printers, and open coding platforms
like Arduino, Rasberry Pi and IFTTT (If This Then
That). Don’t be surprised if we see Etsy-like DIY
stores where we can buy blueprints and CAD files
and construct the products ourselves (like Ikea, but
for anything and everything).

7. Y&R
CES OVERVIEW | JANUARY 2014
3 Industry Trends

8. INDUSTRY #1: HEALTH CARE
SPORTS & FITNESS at CES:
increased 30%
DIGITAL HEALTH at CES:
increased 40%
The healthcare industry is being turned inside out
by two converging trends: smart technology and
wearable technology. Smart technology, which has
been around for several years, is responsible for
the digitization of up-to-now analog measurement
techniques (e.g. check out the Ekoscope, an
electronic stethoscope and EKG monitor). Wearable
technology is responsible for the enhanced tracking
and sharing of our activity. Soon our wearable
devices will be able to predict health problems,
like heart attacks, and help us take proactive
action to stop them from happening.

9. INDUSTRY #2: HOME APPLIANCES
Billions of dollars Google
just paid for Nest Labs: 3.2
Billions of dollars GE just
invested in three kitchen
appliances: 1
Home appliances like refrigerators, ovens, and ACs
have always featured at CES, but never have they
generated so much discussion. That’s because
these home appliances are different; they’re both
smart and connected, which means that they track
relevant user data (e.g. food supply in your fridge)
and communicate that data to you and other devices
(e.g. your cell phone to tell you to get more milk).
Major tech brands like LG and Samsung are poised
to undercut established home-appliance brands
like Frigidaire and Maytag as the technology
gap between them widens.

10. INDUSTRY #3: 3D PRINTING
3D Printing at CES:
increased 25%
Distinct Product Categories:
15
Though the professional 3D-printing industry is
nothing new – engineers and designers have been
using 3D printers for years – the consumer 3Dprinting industry is just now catching fire. What we’re
seeing is a virtuous cycle of increasing supply and
demand: affordable 3D printers are captivating a
new generation of amateur makers and tinkerers,
who are in turn demanding more solutions. As a
result, printers are getting cheaper (XYZ’s Da Vinci
is $499) while the market of interested buyers is
getting larger. As the technology becomes even
cheaper and easier-to-use, and the applications for
it broaden (3D System’s ChefJet is already printing
food), we will see 3D printing go mainstream. (Total
industry sales are $1 billion annually, but projected
by the Freedonia Group to grow at an annual rate
of 21%.)

11. Y&R
CES OVERVIEW | JANUARY 2014
3 Big Implications

12. “INTERNET OF A COUPLE THINGS”
"One option is that [tech
companies] will bang their
heads together in a brutal
war until one becomes the
dominant design. Another
is that they all declare a
truce and decide that they
need to set standards. If
that's the case, smart
homes could be only three
years away.” – Dr. Sanjay
Sarma, Director of Digital
Learning at MIT
Today’s Internet of Things isn’t an “Internet of
Everything” (as Cisco likes to call it); it’s an internet
of a couple things. Several companies (e.g. LG,
Cisco, Belkin) introduced connected-home
appliances at CES: refrigerators that monitor your
food supply, lightbulbs that turn on when it gets dark,
even tennis rackets that coach you on your swing.
The problem with these devices isn’t that they don’t
work - for the most part, they do - it’s that they don’t
work together. Until the major brands adopt an open
standard (e.g. some combination of Bluetooth +
IFTTT), we won’t realize the utopian dream that is
the Internet of Things; we’ll only see individual
companies’ proprietary versions of that dream.

13. REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGIES
STILL “EVOLVING”
Stephen Pierce, IBM
Medical Devices Leader:
"Now we're spending 17%
of US GDP on healthcare in
a highly inefficient system
focused on episodic care
that will take care of me
after I'm sick. [We should]
focus on preventative care,
being able to understand
genomic, personal, and
vital data. Those types of
data sources could drive
quality of care and financial
efficiency."
Wearable devices and consumer 3D printing are
revolutionary technologies that will transform how we
live our lives, but they are evolving technologies.
Because of high cost, low ease-of-use and the
current lack of game-changing applications (even
the CEO of Misfit admits this), these technologies
are still 5-6 years away from being mainstream.
When wearables and 3D printers do become less
expensive (e.g. $50 for wearables and $200 for 3D
printers), easier to use (more predictive and
automated) and develop game-changing
applications (e.g. able to predict heart attacks and
print out working heart transplants), they will be our
generation’s internet.

14. WHAT YOUR WEAR vs.
WHAT YOU OWN
Only 5% of US adults
currently wear a device to
track daily activity. And
only 28% of US adults
would be willing to wear a
sensor device on their
wrists, even if it was from a
brand they trust and
offering a service that
interests them – Forrester
Consumer Tech Survey 2013
The devices we wear on our bodies are inherently
different from the devices we buy for our homes, not
just in terms of technology but in terms of our
willingness to purchase them. What we wear on our
bodies (clothes, accessories, devices) define us in
social settings more directly and loudly than our
external devices. For example, wearers of Jawbone
Bluetooth earbuds are commonly referred to as
(excuse the crassness) “Bluedouches” because of the
loud statement that wearing them makes (I’m always
working and willing to take a call), whereas owners of
Jawbone Jamboxes suffer no such abuse. To address
this difference, tech companies are cozying up to
fashion brands and adopting their focus on making
things we want to wear, not just are able to wear. It
could be five years before this problem is solved.