Tech Talk by LA NPDT – special: ces 2020, Samsung’s New really thin tv, Suunto’s Smartwatch, Smart Beds

Guess what’s happened this (past) week? Is it the biggest, most important, tech show of the year? Stick with us on the latest version of LA NPDT Tech Talk where we bring you the latest in science and technology and keep you tuned in the newest gadgets and product innovations across the globe.

CES was the big topic this last week. Held in Las Vegas, it is the gathering place for all people who thrive on consumer technology. For 50 years, it has served as a showcase for new technologies, and innovators have continued to bring next-gen technologies to the market.

Well, to start with, there are over 170,000 industry leaders, experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs that attend this show each year. Some of the greatest inventions of our time have been introduced at this show, including the VCR, CD Player, HDTV, Satellite Radio, Microsoft Xbox, Tablets, 3D Printers, and Virtual Reality.

Here are some of the things that popped up at the show this year.

Kwikset now has a fingerprint reader for your door. If you’re tired of remembering codes or changing them frequently, this may be perfect for you. Called the Halo Touch, the lock uses a fingerprint sensor on the deadbolt component of your door lock. It also has a Wi-Fi connected device with Bluetooth, so you can still unlock, or lock, your door with your phone.

Called the 7, it is the first Suunto to run on Google’s Wear OS. The smartwatch has features for both fitness tracking and daily use. Some of its key features are activity logging of over 70 sports and activities, music storage for offline use, compass readings while offline, heart rate monitor, and re durable construction. It’s water-resistant and has a Gorilla Glass over the touchscreen display. The 7’s battery will last about 12 hours in GPS mode, or 2 days in regular mode. The 7 goes on sale at the end of the month.

The Q950 QLED has speakers inside, and rear subwoofers, yet is only 15 mm thick. The image quality is exceptional. The TV has software for voice commands and can adjust the sound automatically to outside noises, like your vacuum. The TV does not have a release date yet, but will be available in 65, 75, and 85-inch models.

That’s right. Sleep Number revealed the Climate360. With two separate zones, this bed is designed to warm or cool the bed, depending on your body temperature as you sleep. It has the same key features of other Sleep Number beds including technology to measure your breathing and heart rate. It can track your movement and circadian rhythms, and it can provide you with recommendations on how to sleep better. The bed will be widely available in 2021.

Foldable gadgets do not seem to be going away in 2020. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Fold is the first foldable laptop. It has a foldable screen, a digital keyboard, and Bluetooth keyboard. As with all foldable gadgets, there is still some skepticism as to how well it will work, but Lenovo has been testing this laptop for a few months now with good results. The laptop goes on sale mid-2020 for $2500.

And the last little gadget we’ll mention is the adorable little two-wheel robot that will fetch your toilet paper for you. Charmin’s Rollbot is designed to carry a roll of toilet paper. By simply pressing a button on your phone, which is probably in the restroom with you anyway, restroom nightmares have become a thing of the past.

2020 is already proving to be an interesting year in the gadget world. Stick with us as we move through 2020, and we’ll keep you updated on the newest technologies.

Thank you for listening to Tech Talk.

CES is a technology show held in Las Vegas, serving as a gathering place for consumer technology enthusiasts. For 50 years, it has showcased new technologies and innovations. Over 170,000 industry leaders, experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs attend the show each year. Notable inventions introduced at CES include the VCR, CD Player, HDTV, and Microsoft Xbox.

CES 2020 featured several new products, including Kwikset's Halo Touch fingerprint keyless entry system, Suunto's 7 smartwatch, Samsung's Q950 QLED TV, Sleep Number's Climate360 SmartBed, and Lenovo's Thinkpad X1 Fold, the first foldable laptop. Charmin's Rollbot, a two-wheel robot designed to carry toilet paper, was also mentioned.

The Suunto 7 is the first Suunto smartwatch to run on Google's Wear OS. It offers activity logging for over 70 sports, music storage for offline use, offline compass readings, and a heart rate monitor. The watch has a durable, water-resistant construction with Gorilla Glass over the touchscreen. Its battery lasts about 12 hours in GPS mode or 2 days in regular mode.

The Sleep Number Climate360 SmartBed, designed to warm or cool, will be widely available in 2021. This bed has two separate zones and measures breathing, heart rate, and movement. It tracks circadian rhythms and provides recommendations for better sleep. The bed adjusts temperature based on body temperature during sleep.

Smart bed technology looks like a mattress and behaves like a medical-adjacent sensing platform. Every product in the category is some combination of four subsystems — sensing, actuation, climate and connectivity — and the choices made in each one determine both the retail price and the development risk. The CES launches that made headlines were interesting less for the features than for what they revealed about where the cost sits.

Caption: subsystem cost and risk for a connected sleep product at consumer volumes.

Pressure and ballistocardiographic sensing are well understood. What separates a shipping product from a demo is what you are willing to say about the data. The moment marketing language crosses from "sleep insights" into diagnosis of a condition such as sleep apnea, the product enters FDA territory and the development programme roughly doubles in length. Most CES smart bed announcements manage this by describing wellness trends rather than clinical measurements — a marketing decision made by engineers and regulatory counsel long before the show floor.

Connected consumer products live or die on the boring subsystems. Our electronics design and rapid prototyping teams build sensing test rigs before the industrial design is locked, and design for manufacturing keeps the sensor layer assemblable at volume.

A sensing layer — usually a printed pressure array or piezo film under the sleeping surface — detects weight distribution and the micro-movements caused by heartbeat and breathing. A controller processes that signal into presence, position and sleep-phase estimates, and may drive air bladders, articulation motors or a climate layer in response.

Ballistocardiography can track heart and respiration rate to within a few beats per minute for a single still occupant. Accuracy degrades with movement, a second occupant or a pet, which is why serious products invest more in signal separation than in raw sensor quality.

Sensing, electronics, firmware, app and cloud for a first connected mattress product typically run $250k-$800k through pilot production, with the sensing calibration campaign and the app/cloud backend usually costing more than the hardware they support.

Not if they are positioned as wellness products reporting general sleep trends. Clearance becomes necessary once the product diagnoses, treats or monitors a medical condition — sleep apnea detection being the most common line companies decide not to cross.