Welcome to the 2023 Worst in Show Awards, where we're going to take you through the
absolute worst ideas that manufacturers had this year. These are gadgets that
you absolutely don't need and probably don't want. Our categories this year are Privacy,
Security, Environmental Impact, Repairability. We
have a Community Choice award and our brand new award this year. Who asked for this?
Hey there. I'm Paul Roberts, the founder of Securepairs.org. My nomination for the
worst in show for security this year. Goes to the company Roku, which is announcing this year that
it's stepping up from being a maker of soundbars and streaming sticks to manufacture its own line
of smart television sets. I don't have any dirt on the cybersecurity of Roku television sets,
but what I do know is that Roku, like so many companies at CES, is very hungry for
customer data, but shows few outward signs of being what you would call a cyber mature firm.
So for building a major new product platform on top of what appears to be
a pretty shaky security foundation, Roku is this year's recipient of the worst in
show for cybersecurity at CES. The idea of a TV that weighs less than 20 pounds. That can
adhere to any surface sounds like a great new product until you get to how it powers itself.
There's four swappable rechargeable lithium ion batteries, but when you take into account those
batteries, what if you know the night before-Since you only have a day of charge with them,
you forget to charge them. What happens when the batteries die? That's why the displacement of TV
is the environmental impact winner. One question that everyone should ask themselves in looking at
a new product, whether that's a doorbell, a bird feeder, a sleep mask or earbuds, anything that is
talking to the cloud is whether the company is selling to you or whether they're selling you.
There's a clear worst in show here, and that's the Withings Pui smart toilet, which in the same
page tells you nothing about what is happening with the data that it is collecting and tells you
it's going to help you track your menstrual cycles to find out whether you're pregnant or not. Have
these people not heard of the U.S. Supreme Court and its decision in Dobbs this past year for a
company that claims to be trying to help you with your health, well, that strikes me as malpractice.
How much would you pay for a coffee mug? $10. $20? How about $200? That's what Ember
is charging for their travel mug. Two plus. Not only does the Ember have an integrated
battery that will probably fail you after two years. When Zack over at JerryRig tried
to get the battery out, he had to open it with a hacksaw. Let's give up with
these smart products and go back to a tried and true insulated coffee mug.
iFixits forums are full of people that have these ember mugs that would like to
swap the battery. Embers is not providing a plan. There's no batteries available.
This thing is disposable. Why just sell vitamins when you can bundle an exciting
features like biometric data harvesting and proprietary refills? This brings me
to my who asked for this award, which goes to the skin 360 skin stacks from Neutrogena.
This product takes a detailed scan of your face and prescribes you some kind of nutrient regime,
which it then 3D prints into gummies, which you can buy for $50 a month. I'm trying to figure out
what the worst product to come out of this was. And so this Community Choice winner turns out,
is the JBL Tour Pro two because of how I mean one nobody asked for it.
Two how unrepeatable and unrecyclable they are. Not only are there batteries in both earbuds, but
there's magnets. There's batteries in the case. And I think the kicker is the 1.5 inch touch LCD
screen on the side. My name is Gaye Gordon Burn. I'm the executive director of the Digital Right to
Repair Coalition, otherwise known as Repair.org. The winner by 55% of the entire category.
It really wasn't even close was the Withings Pee reading Smart Toilet,
which for so many reasons could have won in pretty much any category. The real
message for me is that everybody that is looking at these horrible things,
they're going to break. They're not going to be supportable. They're bad for the
environment. How can we how can we create change that will mitigate those damages?
And one of the most obvious ways is to make sure that even if something is made like junk,
that we can at least repair it. And that's a wrap for CES Worst in Show 2023. So everything from
batteries in mugs that can't be replaced to pee
sensors and toilets that are spying on you and could throw you in jail.
This is a new low in technology in the latest and high tech gadgets. Whoever
said that technology was a driving force for good, clearly had never been to CES.
These manufacturers are so focused on figuring out whether they could do these technologies
that they never took a step back to figure out whether they should. I invite you to join
us next year at Worst in Show, where we will see what new depths manufacturers can plum.