115,000 DID YOU KNOW? The number of visitors to this year’s CES in Las Vegas ‘AN OVERABUNDANCE OF GADGETS & GIZMOS’ From automotive to AR and assisted living CES saw thousands of new and innovative products on display, as NEIL TYLER reports his year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was a full in-person event, following the disruption of the past few years due to the pandemic and, as always, the statistics around it highlight the scale and variety of the show with over 3,200 exhibitors covering 2.2mn square feet of exhibition space across the Vegas Convention Centre – which represented a 70 per cent improvement over 2022 – and over 115,000 attendees. CES has continued to widen its scope beyond consumer electronics and with over 300 vehicle technology companies and manufacturers present, it is now one of the most important automotive shows in the world. According to Harold Blomquist, T VP of Business Development, MICLEDI, while CES 2023 was an exciting return to the “near-pre-COVID” CES of old, “global economic factors – declining profits, supply chain issues, travel constraints – and tight budgets did put a dampener on the number of attendees at the show, especially in the hard-hit tech sectors.” But despite that the footprint of exhibitors was refreshingly broad and diverse. “There were pluses and minuses of the increased dispersion and scope,” Blomquist said. “Pluses being the higher participation of influencers and senior-level personnel; while the minuses included spreading these people out making it harder to get quality time conveniently with them as visitors tended to be overwhelmed by an overabundance of gizmos and gadgets, of every conceivable type.” There were no surprises in that sustainability was an increasingly important issue for companies attending CES, as its importance as been growing over recent years. Many consumer brands, including Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony and Hisense, highlighted their commitment to responsible manufacturing and better lifecycle management of their products. Energy-efficient products also took centre stage with companies having to contend with new standards -Energy Star -as well as recently strengthened European Energy Label standards. According to research conducted by Futuresource, video entertainment products now consume in excess of 468 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity globally annually – so it’s no surprise that energy efficiency is now such an important issue. AR & VR AR and VR (combined XR) technology once again took a leading role at CES which, according to Futuresource, was helped by a host of new applications and opportunities driven by the growing Metaverse. One company, Caliverse, demonstrated what VR might be able to deliver via the Metaverse in terms of shopping and shared cinema locations, and did so with a mix of technology, such as VR headsets, hand controllers and separate headphones for spatial audio. According to Imagination’s Vice President of Business Development, Graham Deacon, “In terms of mixed reality, foreshadowing the changes to come as companies and services undergo a fast-paced digital transformation, both in the XR and gaming space, the new chapter in XR is focused on interaction and immersion, beyond just graphics. For me, haptics was the star of the show.” According to Deacon, “There was a clear difference in opinion on what will be the killer app driving the © Consumer Technology Association. 12 / FEBRUARY 2023 © Consumer Technology Association. COVER CES 2023
New Electronics February 2023: Page 12
