Q: What topic or product were you excited about seeing this year?
A: I was particularly excited to see more on the smart home and connected home as it continues to be the dominant theme at most of the electronics shows in 2019. At CE Week 2019, there were several discussions around the importance of mentor and mentee programs within technology companies to help as careers and businesses progress to become much more tech-centered. As many companies now consider themselves technology companies, it was interesting to hear from the Women in Tech panel as they discussed the importance of participating in technology mentorship programs. I’m curious to see how many companies are currently doing this and which ones throughout the next few years will implement mentor programs to help foster personal and professional growth in this industry.
Q: What are one or two ideas or facts about today’s consumer technology that you think retailers should prepare for? What should they do to prepare?
A: The connected home is becoming so commonplace that having one, centralized location or object to control all things “smart” is a necessity amongst consumers. Retailers should, if they haven’t already, promote such centralized hub organizers so consumers will see them as a go-to for all things smart home related. We also need to focus on educating consumers on more effective and convenient technology such as 8K television over its predecessor, 4K, which will allow us to experience a resolution we’ve never seen before with higher pixel quality and better backlighting. In essence, you can have a larger TV without losing picture quality—win, win!
Q: What product do you see topping the sales lists during the holiday season?
A: Along with 8K TVs, there’s a new product out from the company, Plott, called Cubit, and it claims to be the “GPS for your creativity”. It seems fair to say that this may be the ultimate home improvement tool, using AR to measure and help you visualize your project. It helps customers design and install rather complex projects with ease, designing with scale and context and bringing those designs to reality.
Q: What was the biggest takeaway from CE Week 2019 this year? Or, what was a common theme throughout?
A: All smart home technology will continue to grow in popularity including, security, lighting, door locks, and 8K TVs. And to make things better, if retailers can find a way to bring everything together, controllable by one central hub, I believe such products will be a big hit during all major selling seasons throughout the next few years. That being said, I think this year many companies have finally implemented strategies to provide proper training for the advances in smart home technologies. Like the Women in Tech panel mentioned, it’s more important than ever to make sure both employees and consumers have the necessary channels to learn more about this space.
Q: How do you see today’s market shifting the CE space, and how will it affect other industries, retailers, or businesses?
A: With the advent of 8K, we will (hopefully) start seeing more and more content being filmed in 8K such as movies, broadcast television, and cameras. Regular broadcast TV may be the slowest to react, but even the content we already have that’s filmed in 4k will show up better on these newer, higher-resolution 8K TVs. There should be numerous positive effects reverberated throughout the industry with 8K as it will soon allow for more immediate advances in innovation.
And, if you’re like us and get easily distracted by your own thoughts, here are the three most important things to remember:
- CE Week 2019 showed us that smart technology is on the verge of becoming a large part of mentorship programs in business as our world is largely tech-centered.
- Retailers should be quick to promote a hub organizer that is more commonplace and should better educate consumers on such products.
- Be on the watch for the new product called Cubit for a more versatile alternative for home design and improvement—might be a good holiday gift!