CES 2023 Trend Recap: What Marketers Need to Know

Editor’s note:?This is a heavily abridged version of our in-depth CES recap.?We highly recommend checking out the full version?here on the Lab’s Medium blog.?

CES had a lot to prove this year. After going fully virtual in 2021 and opting for a hybrid model last year, the world’s biggest consumer tech event was gearing up for a full-scale comeback this year. The concerted push for in-person attendance worked, but only to a degree. The CTA (the organization responsible for CES) reported an in-person attendance of 115,000 this year, higher than what the CTA hoped for, and doubling the number of in-person attendees last year. Still, this fell way short of the 175,000 pre-pandemic attendees in 2019. The lack of truly groundbreaking innovations or breakthrough products on the show floors this year also made it a rather awkward year of in-between.

That said, this CES is far from being simply iterative. If anything, it showed us a sense of urgency and resilience among the tech companies and innovation-forward brands, following the bad news of poor stock performances and layoff announcements in recent months. Every sector within the tech and innovation space has recalibrated and refocused on more immediate, practical, and solvable matters, without losing sight of long-term goals and industry trajectory. Here’s a quick recap of the most important trends that the Lab team observed at CES this year.

Brands Rush to Build Out the EV Ecosystem

Walking through the auto sections of the CES show floors this year, one couldn’t help but marvel at the way in which electric vehicles (EVs) had completely taken over the mobility innovation space. Affordable EVs made by emerging global automakers like Vinfast from Vietnam and Togg from Turkey were prominently featured, competing for attention with the shiny new EV models from legacy carmakers like BMW and Volkswagen.

Charging infrastructure is a big part of what will facilitate truly mainstream adoption of EVs, and unsurprisingly, it was a big focus for the auto exhibitors this year. Working with EV charging station provider ChargePoint, Mercedes plans to invest more than 1 billion euros to establish a global network of over 400 fast charging stations, starting in California and Nevada, which will be open to non-Mercedes EVs as well.

In addition to the developments in charging infrastructure, there was a renewed focus on conquering the dashboard operating system among the automakers, especially in the face of increased in-vehicle connectivity and cars emerging as the next new battleground for media time. This is a primary reason why an entertainment brand like Sony teamed up with Honda to unveil their joint EV brand, Afeela, which will leverage Sony’s experience with AI, entertainment, virtual reality, and augmented reality to present a unique EV experience.

In line with this rush to take control of the infotainment system against the encroachment of tech giants, Samsung announced its own smart car platform called Harman Ready Care; it will be used to sync music as well as communicate with its SmartThings home system. Similarly, LG revealed its own service pitched at car OEMs, called Cockpit Computer. While both systems will compete with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, it seems unlikely that they will be able to challenge those two in-vehicle OS, due to the lack of integration with devices outside of the car.

Digital Health is Everywhere

Digital health tech typically has a sizable presence at CES, and this year was no different. In a departure from the past two years, Covid tech did not have a significant presence on the show floor (nor did masks, for that matter, never mind the latest highly-transmissible variant). Instead, we were offered an endless array of gadgets offering to track nearly every health metric you can think of – all synced to an insights-driven mobile app, of course -- and evidence that the consumerization of healthcare is continuing apace.

LG, for example, forged a partnership with sleep tech startup Asleep that will allow LG’s smart home appliances to detect when a user is sleeping and adjust appliance settings accordingly. What’s important here is not just that our TVs or refrigerators could soon detect our sleep – though that technology is great for driving energy efficiency.

With consumers using connected health devices to track and generally gaining more control over their health, CES offered some interesting new form factors. NoWatch, a display-less, health-tracking wearable that uses a current to monitor metrics like blood pressure, stress, thinking level, and mood, as well as notify the user about their stress and emotion levels. NoWatch refers to itself as an ”awareable,” with a mission to push back against overstimulation and stress that can come from a deluge of notifications.?

Beyond wearables, the most interesting – or perhaps most headline-generating – health-tracking device on the show floor this year came from Withings. Withings typically comes to CES with sleek smartwatches and health trackers like its Body Scan smart scale from last year, but this year it upped the ante with U-Scan, an at-home, hands-free urine lab device that lives in your toilet. The U-Scan consists of a reader and a replaceable cartridge, with the cartridges measuring health metrics like pH levels and ketones. At launch, its focus is on cycle and nutrition tracking, but the company plans to offer cartridges for additional functions in the future.

Smart Home & Kitchen Automation Embrace “Matter”

CES brought a renewed sense of energy and excitement to smart home ecosystems. The hot topic for smart home this year was the universal connectivity protocol, Matter. The momentum of its recent launch fueled many conversations and innovations at CES, showcasing industry collaboration, enhanced security, and most importantly, seamless interoperability among smart home devices.?

The widespread adoption of Matter now allows smart devices (regardless of their developers or operating system) to connect with each other and communicate appropriate commands. This has created a new need for more sophisticated controls for smart home users. For example, consumers now have a range of options for how they issue commands, depending on the device – from voice assistants to control switches, and more. Until at-home technology becomes fully ambient, there needs to be a hub to simplify user control.

One specific innovation from the show floor for a Matter-powered home was the Mui Board Second Gen from Mui Labs. Mui Labs markets this as “calm technology” because rather than a typical screen, the natural interface is a literal piece of wood – it can be hung as art in the home – and it could potentially replace or complement other command entry points. Mui Labs is just one example of a potential future smart home that offers seamless actions and automation without the intrusion of additional screens.

Of course, given CES is known for flashy technology, there were many screens to highlight that will also transform smart home operations. One such example was Samsung Bespoke AI Oven with the AI Pro Cooking settings that optimizes cooking. Leveraging its internal camera, it has food recognition, burn detection, and even the ability to livestream the view inside the oven. This camera opens a world of creativity and content-sharing for both seasoned chefs or rising influencers. With many more people opting to cook at home post-pandemic, these types of emerging smart home technologies will continue to inspire everyday foodies with new behaviors and possibilities.

Gaming & VR Firms Get Real with the Metaverse

As with every CES, there is always going to be some vaporware — gizmos and gadgets on the show floor that are unlikely to even work, let alone ship. Gaming, VR and the metaverse are perhaps the three territories most prone to this type of faux innovation, but our following picks are guaranteed to make it to market and significantly transform the way we engage in entertainment experiences.

Prior to CES, Meta announced the Meta Quest Pro to usher in the next era of fidelity and functionality for virtual reality. At CES, HTC responded with the announcement of its Vive XR Elite, which will retail for $400 less than the Quest Pro. Despite the significant advantage in pricing, however, it seems that the new Vive headset is still being marketed primarily for business use cases like its predecessors, and it may take some convincing to get general consumers to drop the bucks on this iteration.

HTC was not the only one to show off new VR tech at CES — Sony’s PSVR2 made a similar splash on the main stage. Where Sony truly shines though is in game development; as one of the leading developers/publishers, Sony stands to build the strongest catalog of titles, and its long-standing relationship with other studios will certainly land them access to exclusives ahead of others in the market.

In spite of a solid showing of VR and gaming companies at CES, one related hot concept, the metaverse, came up short this year. Without category leaders like Roblox or Epic Games present, we were left with hardware companies grasping at the elusive concept without true use cases.?

While there were at least a dozen companies and startups that incorporated virtual world-building into their sales pitch (most of which were concentrated in the startup-heavy Eureka Park section), few were actually able to present an interesting use case for the metaverse outside of its existing gaming and entertainment-oriented positioning. Beyond some half-baked attempts at leveraging virtual venues for industry-specific networking, such as the Surgiverse (for surgeons), it appeared that the tech industry is finally moving on from the initial metaverse frenzy and reassessing their metaverse strategy.

Want to Learn More?

If you’d like to learn more about the trends that emerged from this CES and their marketing implications, or simply to chat broadly about how to adapt to changing user behaviors and future-proof your brand strategies in 2023 and beyond, the Lab is here to help. You can start a conversation by reaching out to Josh Mallalieu ([email protected]).