CES 2023: All the Cool, Crazy and Cute Tech We Found in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS—A head-worn smell generator. Cameras mounted on hummingbird feeders. A plane mask that covers your mouth for quiet phone calls at 30,000 feet. The annual tech confab in Las Vegas is back. 

We saw hundreds of gadgets. Some were unproven and many could go sideways, but here’s what intrigued, delighted and puzzled us most in Vegas. Just remember, while you’ll be able to buy some of them in coming months or years, these aren’t recommendations.

Laptop-Charging Stationary Bike Desk

Getting in a workout while you’re working is nice. Being able to charge your laptop using your own movement is even better. As you hop on Acer’s eKinekt BD 3 and start pedaling, the bike desk converts the energy and delivers it to your devices through USB ports. One hour of constant cycling at 60 revolutions a minute can generate 75 watts of power,

Acer

says—fully charging an iPhone 14 could take as little as 1.5 hours. Better get pedaling! Good thing the desk also features a beverage holder. It goes on sale in June in North America for $999. 

Face Mask for Quiet Calls

The European Commission recently said passengers can use 5G on planes in Europe, even for midair phone calls. (That’s not happening in the U.S.—yet.) While it might make everyone else invest in noise-canceling headphones, more thoughtful talkers might look into Skyted. Created by an

Airbus

alum and backed by the plane maker, this privacy mask uses aerospace materials and techniques to absorb 80% of voice vibrations. This means you can place a phone call—or trash talk opponents in an online videogame—without bugging fellow passengers, office mates or domestic partners. The high-tech mouth muffler, which starts at $400, is set to launch on Kickstarter in March.

Computer Screens That Fold and Stretch

We’ve seen screens that fold and screens that slide out to get bigger. At CES,

Samsung

‘s display division showed a prototype tablet with a screen that does both. The Flex Hybrid has a foldable 10.5-inch display you can extend to 12.4 inches with a tug. This division of the electronics giant—which supplies components for its own devices and those of its competitors—also showed off other prototypes: a phone that folds inward and outward with 360 degrees of motion, and a tablet with a 13- to 14-inch screen that slides out from both sides to become 17.3 inches. Some variations could appear in consumer products in the not-too-distant future, the company says.

Home Urinalysis Scanner

This might look like a massive AirTag, but it’s designed to track something even more personal than your luggage. French health-tech company Withings designed U-Scan to hang inside your toilet bowl and analyze your urine. When you pee, the hockey puck-shaped device’s thermal sensor automatically turns it on, and it collects enough of a sample for a test, using replaceable cartridges. It reads biomarkers to report on your hydration, nutrition, metabolism and more. It isn’t supposed to confuse you with a partner or roommate, either. The company says a built-in low-energy radar sensor tracks each user’s unique “stream signature.” The company hopes to sell the device in Europe later this year for about $530, and eventually bring it to the U.S.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What new tech are you most interested in? Join the conversation below.

Flying Car Copter

Aska’s A5 drives like a car, flies like a plane and takes off like a helicopter. The SUV-sized electric four-seater—with a flight range of 250 miles and a top speed of 150 miles an hour—is designed to take you on short hops without you having to switch vehicles. You wouldn’t even need a runaway, just a helipad or similarly compact space. The Silicon Valley-based, privately funded company hopes by 2026 to have a ride-share service option that would let pilots pick up customers from their homes and fly them to their destinations for $1 a mile. Customers can preorder the A5’s initial limited edition for $789,000.

Kitchen Stand Mixer With Scale and Smarts

Need an extra hand in the kitchen that won’t lick the batter when you aren’t looking? GE Profile’s Smart Mixer includes a built-in scale that weighs ingredients directly in the mixing bowl so you can ditch those measuring cups. The device’s Smart HQ app lets you use your Alexa or Google Home devices to verbally instruct the mixer to set a timer, adjust mixing speed, stop mixing or zero the scale. You can also use the Auto Sense feature for guided recipes in the app: The tech monitors changes in texture and automatically shuts off to avoid overmixing mishaps. The mixer starts at $999 and begins shipping this month.

Fitness-Tracking Watch Band

This is for people who love their classic watch (say, a Rolex?) but want to keep up with all the latest fitness-tracking tech. French startup Baracoda developed BHeart, a wristband that fits standard watches and tracks activity levels, body heat, steps and sleep quality. It doesn’t have its own display, so you need an app to use it. The best part is that, like many classic self-winding watches, the band powers itself via motion—as well as body heat and environmental light, collected through solar panels. The company hopes to start selling it for $100 in April.

Self-Driving Lawn Mower

A lawn-mowing robot has long been one of the great promises of the digital age. But the ones on the market for the past decade or so have mostly created more work than they took away. Worx, which has been in the business a while, showed off the Landroid Vision. It’s packed with cameras and autonomous-vehicle AI so it can tell the difference between grass and other surfaces. You don’t even have to set up boundary wires or antennas to keep it from running off. It’s “drop and mow,” as the company says. During a demo in Las Vegas, it easily steered clear of a (plush) hedgehog lying on the turf. It starts at $2,399 and goes on sale in April. 

Camera-Equipped Hummingbird Feeder

People selfies are so yesterday. But bird selfies—“birdies”?! Sign us up. Bird Buddy began shipping its original $199 camera-equipped bird feeder in September, and is one-upping itself at CES with a model designed for the zippiest of feathered friends, the hummingbird. An AI-equipped motion sensor detects when a bird has arrived, and a camera captures images and videos. The system analyzes the images to determine the bird’s species. The company hasn’t said when the hummingbird feeder will ship.

Ultra-Light Mixed-Reality Headset

Wearing a heavy VR headset can be straining, so HTC prioritizes lighter-weight designs. Its new Vive XR Elite headset weighs just over half a pound. Even with the added battery pack on the head strap, it’s lighter than the new Meta Quest Pro. Pass-through video and hand tracking let users interact with objects that appear to be in their real world, without a need for controllers. Think playing games with animated characters that run on the furniture in your home, or a virtual piano lesson with real-time overlays. Preorders for the $1,099 headset began on Jan. 5, and shipments should begin in late February.

Digital-Handwriting Ballpoint Pen

The Nuwa smart ballpoint pen converts your notes and doodles into digital text—no wires or special paper required. As you write, three cameras and an infrared light track your pen strokes. Sync the pen to your smartphone and you’ll find everything you wrote in the Nuwa Pen App, where you can name and organize your notes. When the pen runs dry, just replace the ink with any standard D1 ink cartridge from an office-supply store. When the battery dies, you can recharge it in 15 minutes with its portable charging case.

Fish-Identifying Aquarium Tech

Plenty of fish in the sea? More like, plenty of fish you can see. Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute has a smart system for aquariums that displays information about aquatic species. The screen tracks line of sight or gestures to determine what an observer is looking at, then uses AI to identify the fish from its own image database. An overlay on the wall of the fish tank shows the relevant information. The tech is already being used at the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology in Taiwan. ITRI says it could also work for windows on tour buses.

Virtual Smell Machine

Vermont-based startup OVR Technology created a wearable that produces scents to match the views from smartphones, tablets or computers. The Ion 3 wraps around the back of your head and rests low on your left cheek, mixing from eight essences to project on-the-fly smells toward your nose. When you’re gazing at a beach scene, you can inhale the sea air. When you’re touring exotic locales from your office chair, you can actually smell the flowers. We’ve tried it, and it really works. You can design your own scents, combining essences ranging from earthy and woody to citrus and sweet.

High-Tech Baby Car Seat

Sweat, tears, messy hair. Signs of a parent who just wrestled a wild animal—or just installed a car seat? With its app-guided installation and a smart base that notifies you when it’s installed correctly, the Babyark car seat aims to address key parental pain points. It also notifies you if a child is unbuckled or left unattended in the seat. In the event of a crash, it uses energy-absorption technology to slow the seat’s forward momentum. What doesn’t it do? Self clean all the dried peanut butter and crushed Goldfish. For the price, maybe it should: The seat, due out this summer, will cost $1,190. 

Biometric Smart Safe

Smart-lock maker Lockly just launched a smart safe, which allows real-time monitoring and control from a smartphone. The touch screen shuffles keypad digits, so people looking over your shoulder can’t easily guess your code. It also has a biometric sensor for access via your fingerprint. If someone tried to get in, you’d know: The safe sends you push notifications when an unauthorized person tampers with it. And you can lock, unlock, check the safe’s status and track access history all from the Lockly app. The company says it will be available this spring for $350.

Disney Voices for Amazon Echo

“Hey

Disney

! When can I talk to you in my own home?” Turns out the answer is “Later this year.” We demoed the collaboration between Disney and Amazon that first appeared in Walt Disney World hotels. Instead of Alexa, you get the upbeat, male-sounding “Disney Magical Companion.” It connects you with Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy and other favorites, who tell jokes and help with simple functions such as timers. It will be included with

Amazon

Kids+ subscriptions or available for a not-yet-disclosed fee. We—err, our nieces and nephews—can’t wait!

Glasses-Free 3-D Screen

Asus’s Spatial Vision lets you see 3-D images without needing eyewear. It will initially be available later this year in a high-end version of the company’s 16-inch ProArt Studiobook laptop. The display tracks your eyes using cameras, and serves distinct images to each eye to create the depth-perception effect. It isn’t a fresh concept, but eye-tracking and super-responsive OLED technology could make Asus’s rendition a lot less dizzying. In a demo, we watched an “Avatar” trailer, examined cars from all angles and looked inside a beating heart. The company says it’s for pros such as architects and engineers, but it could even give 3-D movies a small-screen comeback.

Satellite Messaging for Android Phones 

E.T. text home? One of the buzziest features of

Apple

‘s latest iPhones is the ability to contact emergency services via satellite, when you don’t have a cell signal. But you can’t use it to reach out directly to loved ones who might be able to help. Later this year, a partnership between wireless-chip giant

Qualcomm

and satellite-provider

Iridium

will bring satellite communications to Android phones. You’ll be able to send and receive text messages with anyone you like (including emergency responders via

Garmin

) and type whatever you want. Qualcomm says it will bring satellite communications to laptops, tablets and cars too.

Dual-Screen Laptop-Tablet Hybrid

What’s better than a laptop with one screen? How about…two screens? Lenovo built a Windows PC with two 13.3-inch OLED displays connected by a hinge. It looks like a supersize version of Microsoft’s Surface Duo phone-tablet. The software lets you use both displays as one tall or wide screen, or operate them independently of each other for better multitasking. You can watch YouTube on one screen while checking your email on the other. The computer, including a magnetically attachable Bluetooth keyboard, will be available for $2,100 in June.

Refrigerator With Color-Changing Doors

Feeling buyer’s remorse about that blue refrigerator you just bought? With LG’s new MoodUP refrigerator, you can change the colors of its french doors to magenta with the tap of an app. The company uses LED panels to offer 23 colors—you can even change each door to a different color. The doors blink to warn you that the refrigerator or freezer compartment has been left open. There’s also a built-in Bluetooth speaker to play music. If the party in your kitchen gets to be too much, you can shut it all off, resulting in a nice muted gray and white combo.

Invisible Car Speakers

The more an electric vehicle weighs, the more battery energy it consumes.

LG Display

figured out how to remove bulky audio speakers from a car and replace them with what’s essentially a thick paper. The technology causes the car’s frame to vibrate, which then passes the sound waves to the papers embedded in the dashboard, seats, headrest and other surfaces. This Thin Actuator Sound Solution can turn most interior surfaces into speakers. In a demo in Las Vegas, we could feel the car’s walls and seats vibrate as the sound waves moved around us.

Roku’s First Branded TV Sets

When

Roku

‘s first streaming boxes hit the market 15 years ago, they changed the way we watch TV. It eventually integrated the box tech and software into TV sets from partners such as

TCL

and Hisense. Now Roku is branding its own TVs, due this spring. There will be 11 models with screens measuring from 24 inches to 75 inches, and prices ranging from $119 to $999. The move mimics the advantage Apple has long boasted—making the hardware and software gives more control over the final product. The TVs will come with Roku’s voice remotes, and will be compatible with its wireless soundbars and speakers.

AI Baby Monitors With Cameras and Heat Sensors

AI wears many hats: Artist. Student. And now babysitter. Baby-product startup Chillax just launched two AI-powered monitors. Giraffe AI ($200) notifies you of an irregular breathing rate, a covered face or a rollover (though these instances don’t necessarily constitute an emergency.) The information is processed on the device, not in the cloud, though the motion-activated video it captures is stored online for up to seven days. Thermo AI ($400) goes a step further: It detects a baby’s face and sleep posture, and abnormalities in body temperature—changes in the baby’s nether regions could indicate time for a diaper change. Products are expected to ship in late February or early March.

Flying All-Terrain Vehicle

The Recon is an aerial ATV designed for rural areas and agricultural-industry work, to provide easier access to sprawling acres of land with few or any paved roads. It can reach a top speed of 63 miles an hour, and a maximum altitude of 400 feet. Six batteries power it for about 20 minutes of flight time. Ryse Aero Technologies says that the aerial ATV is designed to be operated by someone with minimal training and that no pilot’s license is necessary. The company says it could also be used to provide disaster relief, search and rescue assistance and more. Priced at $150,000, it’s expected to ship late this year.

An E-Dog Named Dog-E

If you want to read this dog’s mind, look at its tail. Dog-E—the latest robot from veteran cybertoy maker WowWee—has audio sensors for hearing verbal commands and touch sensors on its head, nose and body to respond to caresses. It can bark and growl in various tones. But its tail is where you can see icons and messages letting you know it’s hungry or wants to play. The robot has over 10 million possible combinations of colorful lights, sounds and personality traits to make it unique to you. It will be available in the U.S. this fall for $80. Good Dog-E.

—For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Write to Shara Tibken at [email protected], Cordilia James at [email protected] and Dalvin Brown at [email protected]

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

LAS VEGAS—A head-worn smell generator. Cameras mounted on hummingbird feeders. A plane mask that covers your mouth for quiet phone calls at 30,000 feet. The annual tech confab in Las Vegas is back. 

We saw hundreds of gadgets. Some were unproven and many could go sideways, but here’s what intrigued, delighted and puzzled us most in Vegas. Just remember, while you’ll be able to buy some of them in coming months or years, these aren’t recommendations.

Laptop-Charging Stationary Bike Desk

Getting in a workout while you’re working is nice. Being able to charge your laptop using your own movement is even better. As you hop on Acer’s eKinekt BD 3 and start pedaling, the bike desk converts the energy and delivers it to your devices through USB ports. One hour of constant cycling at 60 revolutions a minute can generate 75 watts of power,

Acer

says—fully charging an iPhone 14 could take as little as 1.5 hours. Better get pedaling! Good thing the desk also features a beverage holder. It goes on sale in June in North America for $999. 

Face Mask for Quiet Calls

The European Commission recently said passengers can use 5G on planes in Europe, even for midair phone calls. (That’s not happening in the U.S.—yet.) While it might make everyone else invest in noise-canceling headphones, more thoughtful talkers might look into Skyted. Created by an

Airbus

alum and backed by the plane maker, this privacy mask uses aerospace materials and techniques to absorb 80% of voice vibrations. This means you can place a phone call—or trash talk opponents in an online videogame—without bugging fellow passengers, office mates or domestic partners. The high-tech mouth muffler, which starts at $400, is set to launch on Kickstarter in March.

Computer Screens That Fold and Stretch

We’ve seen screens that fold and screens that slide out to get bigger. At CES,

Samsung

‘s display division showed a prototype tablet with a screen that does both. The Flex Hybrid has a foldable 10.5-inch display you can extend to 12.4 inches with a tug. This division of the electronics giant—which supplies components for its own devices and those of its competitors—also showed off other prototypes: a phone that folds inward and outward with 360 degrees of motion, and a tablet with a 13- to 14-inch screen that slides out from both sides to become 17.3 inches. Some variations could appear in consumer products in the not-too-distant future, the company says.

Home Urinalysis Scanner

This might look like a massive AirTag, but it’s designed to track something even more personal than your luggage. French health-tech company Withings designed U-Scan to hang inside your toilet bowl and analyze your urine. When you pee, the hockey puck-shaped device’s thermal sensor automatically turns it on, and it collects enough of a sample for a test, using replaceable cartridges. It reads biomarkers to report on your hydration, nutrition, metabolism and more. It isn’t supposed to confuse you with a partner or roommate, either. The company says a built-in low-energy radar sensor tracks each user’s unique “stream signature.” The company hopes to sell the device in Europe later this year for about $530, and eventually bring it to the U.S.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What new tech are you most interested in? Join the conversation below.

Flying Car Copter

Aska’s A5 drives like a car, flies like a plane and takes off like a helicopter. The SUV-sized electric four-seater—with a flight range of 250 miles and a top speed of 150 miles an hour—is designed to take you on short hops without you having to switch vehicles. You wouldn’t even need a runaway, just a helipad or similarly compact space. The Silicon Valley-based, privately funded company hopes by 2026 to have a ride-share service option that would let pilots pick up customers from their homes and fly them to their destinations for $1 a mile. Customers can preorder the A5’s initial limited edition for $789,000.

Kitchen Stand Mixer With Scale and Smarts

Need an extra hand in the kitchen that won’t lick the batter when you aren’t looking? GE Profile’s Smart Mixer includes a built-in scale that weighs ingredients directly in the mixing bowl so you can ditch those measuring cups. The device’s Smart HQ app lets you use your Alexa or Google Home devices to verbally instruct the mixer to set a timer, adjust mixing speed, stop mixing or zero the scale. You can also use the Auto Sense feature for guided recipes in the app: The tech monitors changes in texture and automatically shuts off to avoid overmixing mishaps. The mixer starts at $999 and begins shipping this month.

Fitness-Tracking Watch Band

This is for people who love their classic watch (say, a Rolex?) but want to keep up with all the latest fitness-tracking tech. French startup Baracoda developed BHeart, a wristband that fits standard watches and tracks activity levels, body heat, steps and sleep quality. It doesn’t have its own display, so you need an app to use it. The best part is that, like many classic self-winding watches, the band powers itself via motion—as well as body heat and environmental light, collected through solar panels. The company hopes to start selling it for $100 in April.

Self-Driving Lawn Mower

A lawn-mowing robot has long been one of the great promises of the digital age. But the ones on the market for the past decade or so have mostly created more work than they took away. Worx, which has been in the business a while, showed off the Landroid Vision. It’s packed with cameras and autonomous-vehicle AI so it can tell the difference between grass and other surfaces. You don’t even have to set up boundary wires or antennas to keep it from running off. It’s “drop and mow,” as the company says. During a demo in Las Vegas, it easily steered clear of a (plush) hedgehog lying on the turf. It starts at $2,399 and goes on sale in April. 

Camera-Equipped Hummingbird Feeder

People selfies are so yesterday. But bird selfies—“birdies”?! Sign us up. Bird Buddy began shipping its original $199 camera-equipped bird feeder in September, and is one-upping itself at CES with a model designed for the zippiest of feathered friends, the hummingbird. An AI-equipped motion sensor detects when a bird has arrived, and a camera captures images and videos. The system analyzes the images to determine the bird’s species. The company hasn’t said when the hummingbird feeder will ship.

Ultra-Light Mixed-Reality Headset

Wearing a heavy VR headset can be straining, so HTC prioritizes lighter-weight designs. Its new Vive XR Elite headset weighs just over half a pound. Even with the added battery pack on the head strap, it’s lighter than the new Meta Quest Pro. Pass-through video and hand tracking let users interact with objects that appear to be in their real world, without a need for controllers. Think playing games with animated characters that run on the furniture in your home, or a virtual piano lesson with real-time overlays. Preorders for the $1,099 headset began on Jan. 5, and shipments should begin in late February.

Digital-Handwriting Ballpoint Pen

The Nuwa smart ballpoint pen converts your notes and doodles into digital text—no wires or special paper required. As you write, three cameras and an infrared light track your pen strokes. Sync the pen to your smartphone and you’ll find everything you wrote in the Nuwa Pen App, where you can name and organize your notes. When the pen runs dry, just replace the ink with any standard D1 ink cartridge from an office-supply store. When the battery dies, you can recharge it in 15 minutes with its portable charging case.

Fish-Identifying Aquarium Tech

Plenty of fish in the sea? More like, plenty of fish you can see. Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute has a smart system for aquariums that displays information about aquatic species. The screen tracks line of sight or gestures to determine what an observer is looking at, then uses AI to identify the fish from its own image database. An overlay on the wall of the fish tank shows the relevant information. The tech is already being used at the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology in Taiwan. ITRI says it could also work for windows on tour buses.

Virtual Smell Machine

Vermont-based startup OVR Technology created a wearable that produces scents to match the views from smartphones, tablets or computers. The Ion 3 wraps around the back of your head and rests low on your left cheek, mixing from eight essences to project on-the-fly smells toward your nose. When you’re gazing at a beach scene, you can inhale the sea air. When you’re touring exotic locales from your office chair, you can actually smell the flowers. We’ve tried it, and it really works. You can design your own scents, combining essences ranging from earthy and woody to citrus and sweet.

High-Tech Baby Car Seat

Sweat, tears, messy hair. Signs of a parent who just wrestled a wild animal—or just installed a car seat? With its app-guided installation and a smart base that notifies you when it’s installed correctly, the Babyark car seat aims to address key parental pain points. It also notifies you if a child is unbuckled or left unattended in the seat. In the event of a crash, it uses energy-absorption technology to slow the seat’s forward momentum. What doesn’t it do? Self clean all the dried peanut butter and crushed Goldfish. For the price, maybe it should: The seat, due out this summer, will cost $1,190. 

Biometric Smart Safe

Smart-lock maker Lockly just launched a smart safe, which allows real-time monitoring and control from a smartphone. The touch screen shuffles keypad digits, so people looking over your shoulder can’t easily guess your code. It also has a biometric sensor for access via your fingerprint. If someone tried to get in, you’d know: The safe sends you push notifications when an unauthorized person tampers with it. And you can lock, unlock, check the safe’s status and track access history all from the Lockly app. The company says it will be available this spring for $350.

Disney Voices for Amazon Echo

“Hey

Disney

! When can I talk to you in my own home?” Turns out the answer is “Later this year.” We demoed the collaboration between Disney and Amazon that first appeared in Walt Disney World hotels. Instead of Alexa, you get the upbeat, male-sounding “Disney Magical Companion.” It connects you with Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy and other favorites, who tell jokes and help with simple functions such as timers. It will be included with

Amazon

Kids+ subscriptions or available for a not-yet-disclosed fee. We—err, our nieces and nephews—can’t wait!

Glasses-Free 3-D Screen

Asus’s Spatial Vision lets you see 3-D images without needing eyewear. It will initially be available later this year in a high-end version of the company’s 16-inch ProArt Studiobook laptop. The display tracks your eyes using cameras, and serves distinct images to each eye to create the depth-perception effect. It isn’t a fresh concept, but eye-tracking and super-responsive OLED technology could make Asus’s rendition a lot less dizzying. In a demo, we watched an “Avatar” trailer, examined cars from all angles and looked inside a beating heart. The company says it’s for pros such as architects and engineers, but it could even give 3-D movies a small-screen comeback.

Satellite Messaging for Android Phones 

E.T. text home? One of the buzziest features of

Apple

‘s latest iPhones is the ability to contact emergency services via satellite, when you don’t have a cell signal. But you can’t use it to reach out directly to loved ones who might be able to help. Later this year, a partnership between wireless-chip giant

Qualcomm

and satellite-provider

Iridium

will bring satellite communications to Android phones. You’ll be able to send and receive text messages with anyone you like (including emergency responders via

Garmin

) and type whatever you want. Qualcomm says it will bring satellite communications to laptops, tablets and cars too.

Dual-Screen Laptop-Tablet Hybrid

What’s better than a laptop with one screen? How about…two screens? Lenovo built a Windows PC with two 13.3-inch OLED displays connected by a hinge. It looks like a supersize version of Microsoft’s Surface Duo phone-tablet. The software lets you use both displays as one tall or wide screen, or operate them independently of each other for better multitasking. You can watch YouTube on one screen while checking your email on the other. The computer, including a magnetically attachable Bluetooth keyboard, will be available for $2,100 in June.

Refrigerator With Color-Changing Doors

Feeling buyer’s remorse about that blue refrigerator you just bought? With LG’s new MoodUP refrigerator, you can change the colors of its french doors to magenta with the tap of an app. The company uses LED panels to offer 23 colors—you can even change each door to a different color. The doors blink to warn you that the refrigerator or freezer compartment has been left open. There’s also a built-in Bluetooth speaker to play music. If the party in your kitchen gets to be too much, you can shut it all off, resulting in a nice muted gray and white combo.

Invisible Car Speakers

The more an electric vehicle weighs, the more battery energy it consumes.

LG Display

figured out how to remove bulky audio speakers from a car and replace them with what’s essentially a thick paper. The technology causes the car’s frame to vibrate, which then passes the sound waves to the papers embedded in the dashboard, seats, headrest and other surfaces. This Thin Actuator Sound Solution can turn most interior surfaces into speakers. In a demo in Las Vegas, we could feel the car’s walls and seats vibrate as the sound waves moved around us.

Roku’s First Branded TV Sets

When

Roku

‘s first streaming boxes hit the market 15 years ago, they changed the way we watch TV. It eventually integrated the box tech and software into TV sets from partners such as

TCL

and Hisense. Now Roku is branding its own TVs, due this spring. There will be 11 models with screens measuring from 24 inches to 75 inches, and prices ranging from $119 to $999. The move mimics the advantage Apple has long boasted—making the hardware and software gives more control over the final product. The TVs will come with Roku’s voice remotes, and will be compatible with its wireless soundbars and speakers.

AI Baby Monitors With Cameras and Heat Sensors

AI wears many hats: Artist. Student. And now babysitter. Baby-product startup Chillax just launched two AI-powered monitors. Giraffe AI ($200) notifies you of an irregular breathing rate, a covered face or a rollover (though these instances don’t necessarily constitute an emergency.) The information is processed on the device, not in the cloud, though the motion-activated video it captures is stored online for up to seven days. Thermo AI ($400) goes a step further: It detects a baby’s face and sleep posture, and abnormalities in body temperature—changes in the baby’s nether regions could indicate time for a diaper change. Products are expected to ship in late February or early March.

Flying All-Terrain Vehicle

The Recon is an aerial ATV designed for rural areas and agricultural-industry work, to provide easier access to sprawling acres of land with few or any paved roads. It can reach a top speed of 63 miles an hour, and a maximum altitude of 400 feet. Six batteries power it for about 20 minutes of flight time. Ryse Aero Technologies says that the aerial ATV is designed to be operated by someone with minimal training and that no pilot’s license is necessary. The company says it could also be used to provide disaster relief, search and rescue assistance and more. Priced at $150,000, it’s expected to ship late this year.

An E-Dog Named Dog-E

If you want to read this dog’s mind, look at its tail. Dog-E—the latest robot from veteran cybertoy maker WowWee—has audio sensors for hearing verbal commands and touch sensors on its head, nose and body to respond to caresses. It can bark and growl in various tones. But its tail is where you can see icons and messages letting you know it’s hungry or wants to play. The robot has over 10 million possible combinations of colorful lights, sounds and personality traits to make it unique to you. It will be available in the U.S. this fall for $80. Good Dog-E.

—For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Write to Shara Tibken at [email protected], Cordilia James at [email protected] and Dalvin Brown at [email protected]

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE NEWS

Read original article here