Today on the hookup we’re at CES in my living  room checking out the latest tech trends in 2021. 

In keeping with the theme of  2020, this year’s CES was weird,  

at home, and kind of terrible. There were some  clear trends related to touchless technology,  

disinfecting, and social distancing and as  expected there were also quite a few products  

related to spending more time in your home, which  is something we are all familiar with these days. 

Lets get the covid stuff out the of the way first There were literally dozens of companies  

showcasing their large and small scale air  purifiers. I’m not saying they don’t work, but  

there’s probably a reason they are so prevalent:  Selling some UV LEDs and a fan for between 2 and  

500 dollars has a pretty decent profit margin. The product that I think we will see in the most  

immediate future is the Steri-Write system made  by a company in Ohio. The Steri-Write provides  

UV sanitized pens on demand for filling  out paperwork and signing contracts. When  

you’re done just dump your pen in the top to be  sent into the UV sanitizing carousel. Even in  

a post-COVID world I could see these becoming  a standard in hospitals and doctors offices. 

Another unique commercial product that I hope  we see in the near future is the CleanMotion  

door handle. Driven by internal magnets the clean  motion sanitizes the door handle using an alcohol  

based antiseptic after every use, this tech may be  a few years out, but depending on the price point  

I could see these popping up in high traffic  areas and bathrooms in high end buildings. 

The one home COVID related product that caught my  eye was the Ultrawave mask dryer and sterilizer.  

With a 10 minute run cycle and the  ability to accept almost any mask type,  

this portable ultraviolet sterilizer would be  perfect for refreshing your mask on a lunch or  

dinner break. The same company also makes  a dog bone shaped pet MP3 player… so yeah. 

What about non-COVID trends? LEDs are big. Between twitch  

streamers and tiktockers one common theme  is colorful LEDs on the wall or ceiling.  

Twinkly who made a big expansion into big box  stores this year with their pre-lit addressable  

LED Christmas trees has a line of LED wall panels  slated for released in 2021 that I think are  

unique enough to pull some major business  away from Nanoleaf, LIFX and phillips hue. 

Speaking of tiktok, I also think we’re going to  see an influx of facebook, Instagram and tiktok  

influencers pushing kitchen accessories to take up  your precious countertop space. A few years ago it  

was the instantpot, and last year was air fryers  and multipurpose cookers like the ninja foodie.  

This year we’ve got a humidity controlled oven  from ANOVA, and a more involved solution called  

iWonderCook that’s sort of like a meal service  and oven in one, but if I’m being honest it looks  

pretty half baked and I’m not sure it’s going to  make it to market without some serious seed money. 

If you have any countertop space left there  are plenty of other single use gadgets to fill  

it with, like a countertop beer brewer called  the beermkr which can brew beer right in your  

kitchen in just a week, or maybe the dozens of  countertop gardens from companies like Rise,  

aerogarden, and gardyn so you can bring the farm  inside. Don’t forget about drink dispensers! The  

Albicchire stores and dispenses your wine at the  perfect temperature, the Lify is like a Keurig  

specifically for herbal te and health drinks  and the Cuzen brings matcha to your countertop…  

but it’s still not cheap. Ever wanted to buy  soft serve ice cream in non-perishable cans and  

then freeze it in a countertop machine?  2021’s got your back with the Coldsnap. 

Personally I don’t see the value in slowly  growing my own lettuce for $300 when I can  

get it for 99 cents a head at the supermarket,  or wait a week to brew a 6 pack of beer for $600,  

but who am I to tell you how to live your life. I was actually kind of excited when I saw the  

Albicchire countertop wine chiller and  dispenser, but quickly lost interest when  

I learned that each bottle needs to be poured  into a bag before putting it into the dispenser.  

The upside to the bag is it allows the Albicchire  to remove all the air and empty space from the  

bag to preserve your wine perfectly for weeks,  but I don’t remember the last time a bottle of  

wine lasted a single weekend in my house,  so maybe it’s not designed for my use case. 

One food based product that I think is a  legitimately great idea is a battery powered  

lunchbox called heatbox that uses steam to reheat  your meals instead of a microwave. I think this is  

a perfect solution for meal preppers who make  an entire week’s of healthy lunches on Sunday  

to bring to work, assuming we get to stop working  from home at some point. Heatbox even sells  

Tupperware style containers to store your portions  and just drop into your Heatbox in the morning. 

Robotic vacuums continue to get  better, Roborock announced a new  

mopping technology that uses high frequency  vibrations to more efficiently clean floors,  

and Samsung has taken a whole different approach  to robotic vacuum design. Most importantly, auto  

empty bases have become the norm, with all major  robotic vacuum companies either currently offering  

them or slated to release them in 2021. Samsung has also taken a totally new  

approach to refrigerator design with their new  bespoke line. The bespoke is modular allowing  

you to have side by side, top and bottom, or  mixed configurations for your refrigerator.  

I think this is a cool concept, but in the US  I think it will be of limited usefulness since  

most houses are built with a fixed amount of  space for the refrigerator, so the concept of  

having a custom width refrigerator isn’t  really possible. This is likely something  

we will only see in new homes and remodels,  but I guess that’s what makes it future tech. 

In my opinion the most important thing announced  at CES isn’t future tech at all, in any sense of  

the word. In an effort to reduce eWaste Samsung  has announced, for a second time, a program called  

“galaxy upcycling at home” where they will be  releasing special software to load onto your old  

unused galaxy cell phones to repurpose them  in your house. The two use cases that they  

specifically showed were a baby monitor and a  luminance sensor, but there are so many other  

great possibilities. DIYers have been hacking  old cell phones for a decade, but if Samsung  

could find a way to make it easy for general  consumers to repurpose their devices it would  

not only reduce ewaste, but also give an incentive  for people to upgrade their devices, a win win for  

Samsung and since cell phone companies seem to  just copy each other these days maybe we will  

see similar solutions from Apple and LG in 2021. Samsung’s second initiative to reduce waste from  

consumer devices is my first of many major  fails of CES2021. Samsung wants you to build  

small pieces of furniture out of the cardboard  box that your TV comes in, that way you can have  

a Samsung branded cardboard coffee table to  compliment your new high end TV. Just follow  

this complex set of instructions and in just a  few hours you too can have cardboard furniture.

The coolest part of CES is seeing  what the future might have in store,  

but there were a few pieces of tech that the world  just isn’t ready for. Toto makes toilets, great.  

Toto makes high end toilets with built in bidets,  cool. Toto recognizes you from your buttprint  

and analyzes your waste to measure your digestive  health and make dietary change suggestions.  

Too much toto, too much. We want our kids to grow up big and strong,  

how can you give your kid a leg up over the  competition? How about some growth plate  

stimulating laser need pads? Lumiola’s H10 claims  to stimulate growth plates to make your kids  

taller and stronger, the best part is that the  H10 is barely even noticeable, so they can wear  

them anywhere without getting strange looks! Good sleep is also important for growing up  

healthy and strong, NYX has the gosleep device  that hovers over you at night and adjusts the  

amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the  surrounding air to put you right to sleep  

and keep you there. I’m a pretty big advocate  for technology, but letting a computer regulate  

your most essential biological processes while  you are most vulnerable seems like a terrible  

idea. Still creepy but less terrible is the MaRI  which is a sensor for your night stand that uses  

lasers to monitor your heartrate and breathing  while you sleep. If you have a snoring problem,  

the Mari subwoofer will disrupt your sleep  with low frequency sound to stop your snoring. 

And last, and very least, my pick for the worst  product of CES comes from a company called Family  

Self Care. Ever heard of essential oils? They are  those wildly expensive supplements that are touted  

to do everything from cure ebola, cancer and  paralysis and the most amazing part about them  

is that they do these incredible things without  any scientific backing or peer reviewed studies!  

The Family Self Care is an automated  essential oil blender and dispenser  

to get you and your family just the right amount  of pleasant smelling placebo to cure all your  

ailments, for the low price of $300 for the  dispenser and $69 per oil refill cartridge. 

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