Today at CES: Baby wearables, texts from dogs, and E-Ink cars

It’s the first official day of CES and our team has already located dozens of the coolest new gadgets, features, and weird concept cars that probably will never see the light of day.

Halo (not Amazon’s Halo) has a wearable for babies that tracks heart rate, rollover, skin temperature, and movement. 10,000 steps a day may seem tough when you can’t walk, but it’s important to have goals.

Aeolus Robotics made a humanoid robot, Aeo, that’s meant to help out at schools and hospitals by disinfecting, delivering food, and doing basic patrolling. It can also apparently take selfies.

Since we’re all eventually going to live in the metaverse, let’s scan our rooms so the transition won’t be too shocking. MeetKai turns smartphone video into detailed 3D environments.

Amazon is stepping up its Sidewalk network with a bunch of low-bandwidth IoT things and partners. We’re all clearly still figuring out this whole “smart home” thing.

Labrador Systems has upgraded its elder-care robot with an Echo Show, using it as a sort of frontend for the bot. It’s an “early proof of concept,” which is good because I’m not sure it’s the way to go.

Alexa can now tell you where the nearest public charging spot for your electric vehicle is. It’s sad this is necessary but if that’s the extent of your hardship, maybe that’s something to be happy about.

Still on the Amazon tip, Ring is bringing back the Peephole Cam. Why get up from the couch?

Plex is finally — two years after announcing it at CES 2020 — launching its rentals marketplace. “It was a lot harder than we thought,” said co-founder Scott Olechowski. Now fix the PS5 app, Scott! It’s a disaster! (Is there a problem level a level of triviality above first-world? I have lots.)

Ossia and its Cota wireless power were on stage at Disrupt 2023… sorry, 2013. But they’re still putting it out there and now have a security camera that runs on wireless power instead of batteries. That seems like a pretty good idea, though the battery ones go for like a year now.

Have things you want to lock away? Put them in a shiny high tech box from Trova that only opens with permission from your phone. Sure, you could use a regular lock of literally any kind, but that’s not very CES.

I chatted with the guys from StudioBox at Disrupt, and was planning on writing up the pro-remote-video-studio-in-a-box, but Haje ate my lunch. Read up on how they’re adjusting their business to the post-pandemic world:

Smart speakers are nice until you have 2 or 3 of them, then you have no idea where your music will go when you hit play. Google has a solution, kind of. More like a way to manage the problem.

Google also provided some more information on its Android Auto UI refresh, and an HD upgrade for its car maps that will have more precise lane markings, objects, and other stuff included. Volvo will get it first, as well as Polestar, apparently a real car company.

Power1’s AirPods charging case is now smaller, but it still looks like a weird humpback ziggurat to me. If you’re running out of battery so much you need this thing… you’re probably super successful. Congratulations.

To me, AirPods charging things aren’t practical but dog communication devices are. FluentPet Connect has programmable buttons that don’t just speak the word, but send a message to your phone. You’re about to do about 50 walks a day, because good luck saying no to messages like HELP FRIEND PLAY:

Typhur offers a sous vide cooker with a 12-inch display. How big is the display on your sous vide cooker? Thought so.

Qualcomm picked CES to announce that it will be bringing satellite messaging to “select Android devices,” like those with its latest flagship chipset. Not me, then.

Breakout portable power company EcoFlow now makes a lawnmower, portable air conditioner, and portable fridge. This is why we are going to have a lithium shortage, people!

Car stuff below this line

Sony and Honda collaborated on a definitely real car under the baffling “Afeela” brand. You’ll be able to order one starting in 2025, supposedly.

BMW isn’t even pretending its i Vision Dee is real. They hired Schwarzenegger to do the intro video, and the exterior can be customized with different colors of E-Ink (all ugly). It also has some kind of crazy HUD.

I tried to dismiss this but BMW’s CEO Oliver Zipse said it “cannot be simply dismissed as science fiction because it will inspire our Neue Klasse.” Touché, Oliver.

Stellantis is expanding its car sharing, rental, and subscription service Free2move in the U.S., though of course it isn’t free at all. Free floating, yes. If you’re in Denver, Portland, Columbus, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Detroit, Dallas, Miami, Chicago or Tampa, prepare yourself.

In completely unrelated news, Stellantis formed a new business unit to convert vehicle data into money.

That’s all as of now, but our tireless reporters will churn out content for you well into the Las Vegas night.