CES 2023 reflections – CES is back!

The whirlwind of CES has passed. The last guest has left the conference halls, every booth has been disassembled, and the final business card has been exchanged.

This year’s show was a return to the super-sized scale and industry-wide significance that CES built its global reputation on.

115,000 attendees. 3200+ exhibitors. Two million square feet (or 185,000 square meters) of exhibition space.

So what was our impression of the world’s biggest tech show, in this, the year of its return to full force?

From Nordic’s perspective, CES 2023 was a tremendous success.

We attend the show to achieve multiple objectives

1. Meet customers face to face and progress our relationship with them
2. Nurture potential customers towards designing and building with Nordic
3. Promote and demonstrate Nordic’s technology to relevant developers and executives who may not be fully aware of us yet

On every level, the show exceeded our expectations.

Here is what we found

Innovative products with Nordic inside

From our surroundings at Venetian Expo to the halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center, you were never far away from a company showing products with Nordic inside.

From smart light bulbs at Leedarson to asset tracking Chipolo products and the?award-winning smart ceiling hub from SKYX, Nordic was inside products everywhere at CES 2023.

Meeting partners, customers, and the developer community face to face

In-person trade shows have been back up and running for some time, but CES 2022 was a little early to take advantage of this, given it was curtailed by pandemic-related challenges.

This year was the first full-strength CES in what felt like many years, and it was energizing to be back with our customers, partners, and colleagues, face-to-face.

On the Nordic booth, our meeting rooms were booked solid, and the demo stations out on the floor attracted interested parties from start to finish.

According to?Nordic EVP of Sales and Marketing Geir Langeland , there was much value in being physically present with key contacts at CES again.

We work hard to deliver for our customers, and to build long term relationships with them. It’s extremely valuable to spend time interacting face-to-face, and this return to typical CES attendance levels meant that many of our important partners, both old and new, were at the Nordic booth during the show, discussing what we can do together in future.

Being at the center of CES’s most popular technology

Matter, the new, unifying smart home standard, was EVERYWHERE at CES 2023.

Nordic is a key contributor to the standard itself and sits at the highest level of contributor membership within the Connectivity Standards Alliance , the guiding force of the?Matter standard.

Being foundational within Matter meant that we were able not just to tell the story, but show it. Demonstrating a range of products being controlled by disparate hubs from different ecosystems proved to be a highly popular demo, and one of the show’s stronger proof points of the power of Matter.

Nordic CTO Svein-Egil Nielsen believes Matter was also one of the forces behind the strong interest in?Nordic’s new Wi-Fi companion chip, the nRF7002

It was great to see our new Wi-Fi companion chip getting so much interest. Our customers have been asking for Wi-Fi for some time, and now that it's here, the timing of Matter's arrival is perfect. Matter really is an exciting opportunity for developers to use Nordic's Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi products together to build great, ultra-low power devices. I was very happy at how much momentum Matter had at CES, because our Matter story, especially now with Wi-Fi, is a strong one.

Our success at CES was celebrated only briefly. Our event program rolls on, with the focus turning to Mobile World Congress and Embedded World.

CES 2023 will be remembered as a successful one for Nordic. We are already working to ensure CES 2024 will be even bigger and better!

Links to full customer videos

Chipolo, 5Gencare, Meshify, SODAQ, SKYX, REEKON Tools, Owl, Exeger.