CES 2022 Day O – Waiting for 2023

Omicron pandemonium – Silver lining

• Despite the best efforts of the CTA, the advent of the hyper-contagious SARS-Cov2 variant means that CES 2022 is going to be a subdued affair.
• Not only have many participants decided to stay away but many others that were still going (myself included) have failed to pass the health check required to attend the conference.
• This double whammy is almost certain to ensure attendance is a small fraction of normal but critically, I think the efforts made by the CTA will ensure that CES will be back at full strength in 2023.
• The silver lining to the current wave is that Omicron is very likely to quickly compete out all of its predecessors.
• This combined with all of the preliminary data indicating that Omicron is far less dangerous than the others raises my hopes that this may be the variant that effectively ends the pandemic.
• However, in the best instance, this will take the rest of the winter respiratory virus season to become clear, meaning that the pandemic’s ability to wreak havoc is not over just yet.

Asia absence – Pale reflection

• The net result is that almost all of the technology sector from Asia will be absent.
• It currently takes about three weeks to re-enter China, Hong Kong and Taiwan meaning that it simply is not worthwhile for anyone from these regions to attend.
• This has been apparent for some months and was clearly reflected in hotel pricing and cancellation policy when I booked accommodation in October 2021.
• Without Asia, many of the normal deals and chance meetings will not take place although those with US operations will be sending their local representatives in their place.
• Hence, I think that CES 2022 will once again be a pale reflection of its normal self but that it will be able to return in full force in 2023.

The Metaverse – Pole position

• The main topic of discussion, hype and speculation is almost certain to be the Metaverse despite almost none of the main players being physically present.
• The hype has already begun with Samsung launching its version of the Metaverse called My House.
• This is not a Samsung creation but an extension of Naver’s ZEPETO platform which already has a lot of active users although these are using smartphones to access the environment.
• This allows Samsung to leverage Naver’s use base many of whom will already be Samsung fans, but unless it is way better than the execrable Bixby, it will be unlikely to go anywhere.
• I expect that the whole week will be crammed with announcements of this nature.
• This will make the AR / VR part of the exhibition one of the most interesting areas to attend this year.
• Progress on solving the hardware challenges around optics will be top of the list as will be searching for those with the right approach to win in the Metaverse.

Robotics – Too dumb.

• Robotic is likely to be a big theme once again with all sorts of products in weird and wonderful combinations.
• While these products all look great in the demonstrations, they almost always inevitably fall short in the real world.
• This is because the software that governs how they behave remains very far from where it needs to be for robotics to take off with the consumer.
• Robots in the enterprise have been a feature for decades as the tasks and the environments are far easier to program.
• For example, there is still only one company (Boston Dynamics) that can make robots that can walk on legs despite the fact that most animals can do this from birth.
• Hence, it is in the software for robots where the real advances need to be made before these devices are going to have a place in the homes and lives of the mass market.

Electric vehicles – Eclipsed by Lidar

• New entrants, new vehicles and charging technologies are going to take up the biggest stands again this year but I think the real progress will be made in Lidar.
• Lidar greatly helps machine vision systems to correctly identify objects and events on the road, but it comes at a cost that makes autonomous systems beyond level 3 prohibitively expensive to deploy.
• The cost to the consumer would be so high, that none of the carmakers think it is worthwhile deploying at this stage.
• This is why I think that one of the keys to autonomous driving is reducing the cost of Lidar to the point where the incremental cost of including it is negligible.
• There are a number of companies working on this problem many of whom went public by SPAC last year and have subsequently halved in value.
• I think that this is more a reflection of hype and market conditions rather than the fundamentals of the companies themselves meaning that there may be some bargains to be had among the wreckage for those that are very brave.