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Truth. Connection. Wonder. | © 2019 Digitas
Top 10 Toys + Trends
Digitas at CES 2019

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CES 2019 Top 10 Toys + Trends
CES 2019 marked the 52nd anniversary of the world’s
largest consumer technology conference, featuring a
daunting 4,500 exhibiting companies stretched over
2.9 million square feet of exhibit space. Over 180,000
people attended, from over 155 countries.
We bring you the Top 10 Toys + Trends at CES 2019 —
our annual take on what rose above the rest and a
mix of the CES stuff that wow'd, woo'd and is worthy of
watching. Here’s to more innovation and exploration
in 2019.
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CES 2019: Top 10 Trends

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1. Delegation with impact
The ability to delegate your responsibilities to others has, for most
of history, been restricted to the rich and the important. Not
having to spend time thinking about something is extremely
valuable. We observe that when consumers can delegate with
confidence they do so. The examples on this page are some of
many which are starting to offer delegation in areas where there
are serious implications if the delegate gets it wrong.
Smartbeat is a baby monitor that uses machine vision to spot the very
small movements caused by your baby’s breathing. The idea is to give
you confidence: every parent has experienced the pang of anxiety
and checked whether a child is still breathing. With this monitor, you will
be alerted if there is a problem.
Efelya manages
obstetric risk during
pregnancy. It sets up
predictive
monitoring of the
evolution of the risk.
If a pathology risk is
detected, Efelya
sets up monitoring
protocols that adapt
as soon as medical
data is interpreted
by the algorithm.
Pink Lotus’s POMM
child safety band
does more than give
parents the
reassurance of
knowing where their
children are. Using
temperature and
heart rate monitors,
it gives them
confidence that
their children remain
well.
Hüpnos is a sleep
mask that helps you
achieve better
sleep. It monitors
how well you are
sleeping; and if you
snore, it can
intervene by
vibrating and by
restricting the airflow
out of your nose (a
technique called
“E-PAP”).

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2. Intelligence at the edge
The promise of machine intelligence has baggage when you
use the cloud: communication is slow, it’s expensive to scale,
and privacy is a concern. There were many examples at CES of
“intelligence at the edge,” where machine-learning algorithms
are run on the users’ own devices quickly, at low cost, and
without sending sensitive data over the network.
Anagog’s “Jedi” product is software that you integrate into your own
app. It uses sensors on users’ phones to build profiles of them: where
they live and work, what kind of activities they like doing, and so on. So
far, so creepy, right? However, this information stays on the device: it is
not sent to the cloud. It can therefore adapt the app or select targeted
content without revealing private information.
OrCam’s MyMe is a
wearable camera
that looks and listens
to your world and
helps you: It
recognizes faces
and prompts you
with a name you
may have forgotten,
for example. It does
this on the device,
not in the network.
To address the
demand for 4K
video content,
researchers from the
South Korean
university KAIST
trained a model to
upscale 2K frames to
4K using few
resources: high
speed, high quality,
and low cost.
Guardian Optical
Technology’s
Optical Cabin
Control uses just one
camera in the car
ceiling to perform a
wide variety of
functions, from
spotting sleepy
drivers to gesture-
based control of
the car.

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3. Voice and assistants everywhere
Our guests at CES were treated to Brian Cooley’s warm-up talk,
in which he said that voice had become table stakes in new
devices. As much as dedicated smart speakers remain a hot
item, we saw more ways in which voice control is becoming
embedded into the domestic environment, so that increasingly
people—and brands—can just assume it’s available.
KitchenAid appeared at CES for the first time this year and launched its
Smart Display, a voice assistant with a 10-inch screen designed to sit on
the countertop. It runs on Android Things, so it provides the features of
the Google Assistant. It is optimized for kitchen use, with exclusive
cooking content from Whirlpool-owned Yummly, and IPX-5 water
resistance.
Sprint upgraded its
Magic Box in-home
signal booster. The
new Magic Box
TREBL wraps that
functionality in a
good-sounding
smart speaker that
provides Alexa
capability in
the room.
Kohler’s Numi 2.0
intelligent toilet
provides a “fully
immersive
experience”
according to the
company. One of its
many features
includes bringing
Alexa to the smallest
room.
ZŌN’s smart speaker
stood out because
of its form factor. It
plugs into your AC
outlet and provides
full Alexa
functionality—
effectively moving
from being a device
in a room to being
part of the house.

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4. Private health testing
There are more and more ways to measure things about your
body and health. There are also more potential implications
from the results of those measurements, including health
insurance and employability. This year, we saw more health tests
that could be done conveniently and privately at home. TestCard is a medical technology company that has created a
“postcard“ with an embedded, pull-out urine test. Users order new
cards, pull of the strip and immerse it in urine, then use a phone app
and the phone’s camera to analyze the changes and give them
immediate results. The results do not leave the phone.
EyeQue is a device
that you use with
your smartphone
and an app to
measure your
eyesight (refraction
error) at home and
generate your
eyeglass
prescription.
YO is the only
FDA-cleared,
smartphone-based
home test that gives
you >97% accurate
count of your
MOVING sperm.
Results include a live
video of your sperm
and can be shared
with medical
professionals to
expedite treatment
if needed.
1drop Inc. is a South
Korean company
that uses a
disposable biochip
to allow
measurements
(initially glucose
level) to be taken
privately using a
smartphone
camera and
associated app.

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5. Feeling secure
Life feels full of complexity, with new ways for things to go wrong
and new ways for people to do you harm. It’s hard to know who
or what to trust. We saw many products motivated by different
aspects of the need for people to feel secure. This area is an
opportunity for brands—we discussed on our tours of the show
floor how AllState and AT&T have been exploiting it, for
example.
This is the third year that CES has had a dedicated “Sleep Tech” zone.
In the hubbub, it’s difficult for consumers to tell what works and what
doesn’t. SleepScore Labs has responded to this demand by positioning
itself as an authority: it resells sleep-tech products and uses data from
users of its sleep monitoring app to provide validation of those
products. It also sells data back to the vendors.
Wishing to keep
ourselves safe, we all
put up with the
inconveniences of IT
security. Uniken
addresses the
tension between
safety and customer
experience by
providing a security
product designed
for the “customer
experience first.”
Plegium’s smart
pepper spray takes
the familiar personal
defense weapon to
the next level.
Triggering it prompts
a strobe light and a
loud alarm, and
alerts friends and
family or
the authorities.
When your Internet
connection at home
doesn’t seem to be
working well, where
is the problem?
MONITOR-IO’s
device sits on your
network and keeps
an eye on how it’s
working, giving you
insight into where
problems may lie.

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6. Coaching and behavior modification
Over the last four years, we’ve observed how monitoring for
health has evolved from merely providing data, through
aggregating data, to providing interpretation and advice. Big
brands and start-ups today are drawing on that experience to
produce more nuanced services in fields that combine data,
automatic advice, human coaches, and community to achieve
rapid and lasting changes in behavior.
Dutch start-up Gametimer tackles a problem that any parent will
recognize: how do you limit video game time without causing
arguments? With Gametimer, you agree on a schedule and download
it to the device. Children follow it easily, and start to learn to
self-moderate through the experience.
Pani is a smart water
flow meter that
encourages you to
use less water at
home. It initially
offers personal
targets. Like Nest,
the company is
negotiating with
utilities to offer
financial incentives.
TISPY is an alcohol
monitor you breathe
through. It logs each
reading on a
memory card
(privately, not in a
cloud), and you can
use the data to
understand and
moderate
consumption.
Lightfoot plugs into
your car and uses
F1-style live engine
analytics to help you
drive in the ‘sweet
spot’. Drivers
compete on their
scores and are
rewarded with
discounts and prizes.

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7. Self-driving vehicles for business
While the media focuses on the debate around self-driving cars
and its implications, businesses are finding practical uses for
autonomous vehicles today. In many cases, these are in
controlled environments and rarely carry people, so there are
fewer regulatory challenges. Swedish Einride’s truck holds 15 pallets of cargo in its 23ft × 8ft footprint.
Designed from scratch for autonomous use, it has no space for a driver,
although it can be remotely controlled by an operator. It is already in
commercial use with logistics company DB Schenker and is expected
to be in pilot routes on public roads in Sweden and the U.S. this year.
Panasonic’s
SPACe_C eMart is
designed to bring
fresh grocery
shopping to your
door on demand. It
can be requested
through an app and
automatically
identifies and
charges for items
you remove.
Robby Technologies
is one of several “last
mile” delivery robot
companies. At CES
they announced a
partnership with
PepsiCo’s Hello
Goodness brand,
which will see five
SnackBots roaming
the campus at
University of the
Pacific, Stockton.
Honda showed its
autonomous utility
robot vehicle.
Underpinned by
Honda’s reliable
four-wheel drive
powertrain and air-
free tires, the
modular vehicle has
a wide range of uses
in construction
and maintenance.

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8. Serious drones
When they are not closing airports and drawing the eyes of
nervous neighbors, drones remain popular as toys and are useful
for photographers and filmmakers. Business is driving the
technology, however, and professional drones—like John
Deere’s combine harvester, which made an impressive display
at the show—are having serious commercial impact.
Global Energy Technology demonstrated a breakthrough in the use of
drones with in-flight recharging. Head of engineering Maxim Koshelev
explained that a 20m-wide resonance loop can deliver 12kW
simultaneously to two drones flying within it. This technology allows
electric drones to operate continuously, and to travel long distances by
hopping from one recharging station to the next, without landing.
JD.com has been
using delivery drones
commercially since
2015 to lower
delivery costs in rural
areas with complex
terrain. Its hybrid
drones (electric
vertical take-
off/landing; gas
level flight) are the
first large-scale
e-commerce
application
of drones.
Ewatt Aerospace’s
EWG-G3V is a very
capable hybrid
delivery drone. Fully
autonomous, it takes
off and lands
vertically and has
around 4.5 hours of
endurance when
empty (e.g., for
monitoring) and 2
hours with an 11lb
payload flying
at 50mph.
RoboSea’s Robo-
Shark underwater
drone is over 6ft long
and weighs 130lb. It
is capable of long
autonomous
missions, for
example for
surveying, and has
automatic
object avoidance.

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9. New in-car landscape
The automotive industry at CES naturally focuses on future
technology. The bar continues to rise: Toyota’s recently updated
RAV4 compact SUV—the best-selling car in America—now
features a host of safety features, such as adaptive cruise
control, included even in its $31k base model. We picked out
some examples that give strong indications about the next
generation in-car landscape coming to market in 2020–2022.
Nissan showed its “Invisible to Visible” concept with an impressive live
demonstration. Combining two components—“omni-sensing,” where the car
combines sensors all round, and the “metaverse,” an immersive experience—a
driver wearing a mixed reality headset was able to “see through” bad weather
(using previous data about the route to reconstruct a bright image) and receive
instruction from a teacher apparently sitting next to him in the virtual
“metaverse” world.
Hyundai took a
conceptual look at
what families would
do with all the time
they got back when
their autonomous
car was driving for
them. One thing was
“taking your workout
with you”—a
competitive rowing
machine in the car.
Wayray showed its
headset-free AR,
where images are
displayed head-up
on the windshield
and adjusted to the
driver’s eyepoint, so
that objects in the
real world can be
highlighted. Set to
appear in the
Hyundai Genesis
in 2020.
BYTON, a start-up EV
maker, showed the
latest iteration of its
in-car UI. The single
45-inch screen that
covers the whole
area below the
windshield provides
enough space for
the displays
themselves to be
uncluttered, says
the company.

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10. Pet tech is bigger than ever
Pets are always a popular subject of products at CES, with novel
ways to monitor, entertain, and feed them. This year was a
bumper year, with more connected cat litter boxes than ever
before. We’ve picked a few choice examples for animal lovers.
Invoxia’s diminutive pet tracker is not the first device to allow you to
keep track of where your pet is. However, its small size, long 3-month
battery life, and included 3-year network subscription (and around
$10/year after that) are all possible because it uses a dedicated IoT
network (in this case the French SIGFOX network, available in most of
Europe). It is the shape of trackers to come.
Got a wet pet?
We’ve all been
there. Pop your cat
or small-to-medium-
sized dog into the
PePe DR-100 drying
box from South
Korea, and in 30
short minutes it will
be bone dry
and fluffy.
Got a fat cat? The
HANSEO Cat Wheel
gives your cat the
exercise it needs.
You can play with
your cat using a
virtual lazer pointer—
a ring of LEDs allows
you to move a
bright spot as the
ring spins. The higher
the spot, the faster
the cat goes. Only
$1,800.
VARRAM is a robotic
pet toy. It engages
your pets, running
around and getting
them fit and active.
It also helps alleviate
separation anxiety—
messes and
disruptions at home
often occur within
the first 20 minutes of
a pet being left.

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CES 2019: Top 10 Toys

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2. Pimax 8K VR headset
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1. nreal AR headset
nreal’s AR glasses demonstrate that AR wearables might be
reaching a useable format, with high-quality visuals,
tetherless form, and a 52-degree field of view (FOV), which
is more than both Magic Leap and HoloLens. Most
importantly, they are not totally obnoxious: you put them on
like normal glasses, and they only weigh 3 ounces. They
have a user-friendly price at “around level of a
smartphone.”
Runner-up: RealMax Qian.
While RealMax is somewhat more
clunky than nreal, its FOV is 100
degrees, and it has exceptional
display. It also has a front-facing
camera that can be connected to
Leap Motion, meaning hand-tracking
is a possibility. Similar in price to the
nreal, at $1,000.
A $900 VR headset with dual 3840×2160 displays and a
200-degree field of view. This means it is able to fill up nearly
all of your peripheral vision, and there’s little or no visible
pixelation, giving a more immersive experience. There are
optional modules for hand-tracking (in partnership with
Leap Motion) and eye-tracking (in partnership with
7invensun) offering the opportunity for more intuitive
gesture control and foveated rendering, respectively.
Runner-up: DOF Robotics Hurricane is
a six-axis motion ride with 36-degree
rotation capability, which, when
combined with a VR headset, is able
to simulate almost any fairground
ride. Users are suspending from the
hexapod robot, and special effects
include rain, wind and fog.

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4. Slighter learning lighter
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3. P&G Opté skin wand
A prototype wand that can detect the color and
pigmentation of your skin, spot blemishes, and apply tiny
jets of makeup in the perfect color to make those blemishes
disappear. A camera captures 200 pictures of your skin
each second, then applies 1 billionth of a liter of makeup
on each skin spot it detects. As a result, makeup is typically
applied to only 10% of the skin area, a sharp contrast to
traditional cover-all approaches.
Runner-up: VISOURIRE facial exerciser
by LION. VISOURIRE strengthens the
muscle and skin in the face, toning it
and making it easier for the user to
smile. It does this using oral
reflexology, applying vibration to the
inside of the cheek with a silicone
head that mimics the shape of the
thumb.
Slighter helps you reduce the amount you smoke, and then
quit. It replaces your lighter (every smoker needs one,
right?) and logs each time you use it, learning about your
smoking habits. Then it uses behavioral reinforcement,
prompting you to skip a cigarette here and there, and
reporting how much money you’ve saved and how well
you’re doing. Over time, you learn new habits without
needing replacements such as gum.
Runner-up: Pivot is a smoking-
cessation service that uses a device
to measure lung health and then
provides coaching to help you
reduce your smoking over time. It is
sold to enterprises: the price of
$595/employee for one year is a good
value compared to around $7K/year
in extra healthcare costs for smokers.

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6. Royole foldable phone
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5. Groove X Lovot
The makers of this $3,000 robot say it’s “not useful and will
probably get in your way.” However, it is specifically
designed to create emotional attachment. The eyes have
six layers of projections to create depth, and it will make
cooing sounds in response to your touch. The canister on
the top of its head contains a microphone and three
cameras that help the AI recognize up to 1,000 people. This
means it will respond differently to individuals and will
remember people who treat it roughly.
Runner-up: LuxAI’s Qtrobot, which
helps autistic children who are
overwhelmed by human contact to
become more comfortable in a
therapeutic setting by creating a
triangular interaction between the
human therapist, the robot, and the
child.
The first commercially available smartphone with a flexible
screen. When open, its 7.8-inch screen operates as an
Android tablet, but when folded in half, around its central
hinge, it becomes two Android phones. The hardware
appears to be robust — a decent amount of force is
required to open and close it — and Royole says the device
will withstand 200,000 folds. The phone, which is currently
available in China at a cost of $1,320, is just the first of many
foldable phones we expect to see in 2019.
Runner up: Sensel immersible screen.
Sensel’s screens work underwater. In
fact, their reponsivity is better than
your average screen. Using force and
positional sensors, they can detect
how hard you are pressing, and can
work with any object and produce
highly realistic haptic feedback

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8. Robomodix assistant
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7. BotBoxer
BotBoxer is a high-tech training machine for combat sports,
designed to be your personal sparring partner. It adapts to
your level of boxing technique and allows you to set
challenges. For example, it recognizes and escapes your
strikes, helping build up not only the power, but also the
velocity of your punches. It allows you to visualize your
achievements with blow-by-blow statistics.
Runner-up: JaxJox KettlebellConnect.
The KettlebellConnect counts reps for
you, customizes your workout from the
app, and allows for quick increases
and decreases in the weight of your
kettlebells, just by making adjustments
on the display.
The team behind Robomodix has many years of experience
in animatronics — building realistic automata for
amusement parks and film. They applied these skills first to
build a platform for academic research into how people
interact with anthropomorphic robots. They have turned this
into the Robomodix assistant — an Alexa smart speaker in
the form of a head that appears to listen and speak. It’s a
polarizing proposition: even at $1K there was no shortage of
enthusiasts at the show. Field tests so far with elderly people,
who are often lonely, have been encouraging.
Runner-up: Pillo, a voice-powered
assistant dedicated to health. It has
an internal carousel with 28
compartments that can hold four
weeks’ worth of medication. It uses
face recognition to identify the
patient before dispensing. Its “face” is
part of an attempt to create a
personality that encourages
adherence.

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10. SOURCE Hydropanel
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9. AutoKitch cooking robot
Vinay Shivaiah created AutoKitch to save time preparing
food. It is an automated meal-preparation robot that can
make any dish where the ingredients are chopped, mixed
together and stir-fried, baked or grilled. You select a recipe
from its database, add the raw ingredients into the
numbered hoppers, and it does the rest. An internal
pressure-washing system keeps the whole machine clean
and ready for use, except for the blades, which are easy to
remove and wash by hand.
Runner-up: Rotimatic.
The Rotimatic measures, mixes,
kneads, flattens, cooks and puffs rotis,
as well as tortillas and pizzas, for just
$999. It has15 sensors to get the taste
just right.
SOURCE Hydropanel uses water vapor in the air to produce
clean drinking water. It thereby reduces associated waste,
such as bottles. SOURCE also uses solar panels, meaning
you can produce water safe for consumption with no
external power source. Users can track the amount of
water being produced, as well as whether their Hydropanel
needs maintenance, on the app. Aimed at families, the
SOURCE Hydropanel produces 300 liters of water per month
per $2,500 panel.
Runner-up: Watergen.
Aimed at towns and factories,
Watergen’s large-scale water
generator can produce up to 500
liters per day using external electrical
power; 1kWh of electricity produces
approximately three liters of water.
Watergen also has emergency
response vehicles and a home
solution coming soon.

20.
Digitas’ Product Deep Dive: Live Video from the Show Floor
KEITH SOLJACICH
ORCAM: MYME CAMERA
ADAM BUHLER
CAREOS: SMART MIRROR
JESS WAH
NANIT: BABY MONITORING SYSTEM
FIORA MACPHERSON
P&G: SMART MIRROR
CES 2019
DIGITAS BOOTH DEMOS
SAM COSTELLO
WHIRLPOOL:
CONNECTED
HUB WALL OVEN
LORENZO WOOD
PIVOT: QUIT SMOKING AT SCALE
TONY BAILEY
VAYYAR: 3D IMAGING SENSOR
20

21.
JOHN MCDONALD
ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR
BRANDS POST CES 2019
TONY BAILEY
RETAILERS WHO ADOPT AI
ARE POISED FOR SUCCESS
Digitas & Pub Media POVs from our Delegates on the Ground
SCOTT DONATON & ANDREW
CARLSON
ORCHESTRATED SUCCESSS:
CONNECT THE DOTS
OR LOSE YOUR WAY
ADAM BUHLER
REGAINING CONSUMERS’
TRUST IN TECHNOLOGY
KEITH SOLJACICH
XR: THE NEXT
CONNECTED AGE OF
PERSONALIZATION
KRISTEN MILLER
WHY B2B BRANDS SHOULD
PAY ATTENTION TO CES
GO TO PUBLICIS
MEDIA’S TRENDS &
INSIGHTS REPORT FOR
POVS ON 5G, AUTO,
COMMERCE, & MORE
21
SHREYA KUSHARI
WELLNESS
REDEFINED
FOR MARKETERS