Gallery: 11 More Things We Want to Steal From CES
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Lego is a nearly perfect toy. Boost makes it almost miraculous by letting kids kids build interactive robots. The Bluetooth-connected modules, including wheels and gears, attach to standard Lego bricks. An app based on the Scratch programming language developed by MIT communicates your commands to roll, walk, tilt, flash colors, and make noise. Boost is an educational tool, but because it’s Lego, it’s also one helluva lot of fun for kids. And kids at heart. $160
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The Thermomix looks like an oversized blender, but it actually does a whole lot more than just blend. It also chops, stirs, or whips whatever you put into it. It boils liquids. There's a scale inside for preparing weight-measure recipes. It can steam vegetables, cook bacon, and make yogurt. Got an hour? Make a risotto inside the thing, or even (yep) a quiche. There are millions of these in kitchens around the world, but now the Thermomix is finally [coming to the US](https://stag-komodo.wired.com/2016/12/review-thermomix/). It can really do anything, and you really want one. $1,300.
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"A solar-powered bike lock that connects to your phone via Bluetooth and enables a ride-sharing network" sounds at first like an only slightly wonky CES Mad Lib. But it checks out. The Ellipse from Lattis can alert you if someone's tampering with the lock, charges itself every time you leave it outside, and can even remind you where you left your Schwinn this morning. And it will let Lattis create a city-wide bike network, where every tree and street sign counts as a perfect place to leave your vehicle. This lock's [not new](https://stag-komodo.wired.com/2014/05/bike-velo-skylock/), but it's real now.
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The charming wood Mission Computers built by an engineering team from Red Hat keep things simple. The open-source Endless OS draws inspiration from mobile platforms and offer a user interface anyone can master quickly. The little Linux boxes, designed for beginners and emerging markets, are coming to America. The Mini will run $130, and the bigger One $250. The OS is proprietary, but its office apps are compatible with Microsoft Office and the Endless app store hosts 1,000 or so titles.
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One day at CES is enough to make you long for this clever folding Bluetooth keyboard. The Kanex MultiSync is about the size of a big billfold, so it fits nicely in your pocket or purse. Yet somehow the chiclet-style keys offer good spacing and pleasant travel. You’ll find it waaay more comfy than a smartphone screen for banging out emails and liveblogs, and it costs just $50.
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Need more proof that cheap Android phones are getting insanely good? We present Exhibit A: This unlocked $180 handset from Coolpad. The Conjer (pronounced “conjure”) sports an attractive metal case, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, dual SIM slots, and 3 gigs of RAM. Still not convinced? Check out the 8-megapixel selfie cam and 13-megapixel main shooter. The lightweight skin borrows a few aesthetic elements from iOS, including a swipe-from-bottom system tray. You can get one beginning January 19.
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Surely someone can come up with a practical purpose, and perhaps several, for the Flir Duo, a drone-compatible thermal imaging camera. But who has time for practical when you’re talking about a $1,000 camera that provides Predator-like vision from 1,500 feet? The Dup also sports a 2-megapixel conventional camera, if you somehow get bored of seeing the world through heat-colored lenses.
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Now that Snap's Spectacles have made face-mounted cameras totally on fleek, we thought CES might be full of new gadget glasses. But the best one we've seen so far is from a company that's been doing this for a while. The Vuzix Blade 3000 are the first consumer-friendly product from a company that's been making head-mounted displays for businesses. The Blades look like boxy Oakleys, but they connect to your phone and bring your screen right up in front of your face. Long-term, it's a full augmented reality system. Right now, it's a perfect way to look at Instagram without looking down.
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The clickety-clack kings at Das Keyboard have a new mechanical keyboard that's not only loaded with the company's own Gamma Zulu switches, but can also connect to various web services. The LEDs under the keys light up different colors based on whatever criteria you set. Incoming emails or Twitter mentions make certain keys glow. Other keys glow different colors based on what the temperature is outside. Program it yourself with IFTTT, Zapier, and Das's own API. The 5Q is available for pre-order for $229.
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A laptop typically offers two interfaces: Your mouse and your keyboard. The sleek AirBar from Neonode ($99) offers a third: the screen. Magnets affix the AirBar just above the hinge on any 13-inch MacBook Air and projects an invisible light field over the screen, effectively making it a touchscreen. You have the best of two devices: you can pinch, zoom, and swipe like a smartphone or tablet, but type and click, too.
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The great promise of Alexa, Google Home, and the hoards of other voice-activated devices on display at CES is you can do whatever you need to do without ever looking at a screen. Issue is, when it come to communicating certain types of information (any type of list, really), audio as an interface often falls short. The [Rokid Alien](https://www.rokid.com/), an egg-shaped smart home hub, solves for this with a screen that displays information related to your request. For now, it's best at showing things like time, weather, and recognition of a voice request. Peering into the future, it's not hard to see how something like the Alien can blend visual, audio, and artificial intelligence to make a far more compelling—and useful—interface.
