The wacky and weird products of CES 2023

I’ve picked out the best products from CES 2023, and now it’s time to pick out the crazy and weird products.

The line between best/cool/innovative and wacky/weird/stupid can be a fine one. After all, we don’t need much more gadgets than a computer, a smartphone, the Internet and simple household appliances. But tech companies have convinced us that spending on cool tech is a great use of disposable income. They’re also telling us that the metaverse is the next big thing.

Besides setting the big trends, CES also shows us the big flops. There was a “Gallery of Flops” historical exhibit in the Eureka Park portion of the show, but it kind of flopped because they couldn’t access the keys to the lockers where they kept their exhibits. It was a gallery of nothing when I walked past it.

Many people laughed at the Withings urinalysis scanner for your toilet, but I found that much more practical as a useful preventative measure – a good way to signs of diseases – and not just a vanity about the “quantified self.” That’s why I don’t tend to joke about innovations in health.

But some of these products made me laugh out loud, as useful as they may seem to some enthusiasts. Just remember that everyone has a different line when it comes to dividing between cool and weird. Sometimes a product gets weird when you put a price on it, like the $250 dog food bowl I wrote about years ago trying to replace a $5 dog dish. Or the $5,000 Kohler shower system I saw this year. As part of a home remodel or luxury home purchase, the $5,000 shower system isn’t all that crazy.

Other everyday products made you wonder if they were really necessary just because you connected them to the internet, creating a new internet-of-things gadget. Now we see AI/machine learning permeating everyday products, and the wave of nothingness begins again.

Without further ado, here are the weird products from CES 2023. Like them or not, they’re all fun.

The smart pushchair Ella from Glüxkind Technologies

I looked at other publications and found a lot of weird CES listings from Canada. It showed the Ella AI-powered stroller with a motor. Rather, it uses some algorithms to help parents with their strollers. It has self-propelled capability, but not while the baby is actually in the stroller. That only works if you have to hold the baby in your arms and push the stroller at the same time. It also uses sound to coo your baby to sleep with white noise and a rocking motion. As you go uphill, the motor kicks in to assist you.

This is an example of taking an everyday thing and making it smarter. It puts intelligence at the edge of the network and there’s really no need to send your data back to the cloud. I suppose I shouldn’t call this weird, because it can be very helpful to the target parents, and it was invented by new parents. But it’s definitely something I didn’t expect on the show. Another surprise? The $3,300 price tag.

BMW’s Dee changes color and emotion

Last year, I thought BMW’s color-changing car was impressive. And that wasn’t until it used E Ink to change the surface color from black to white and back. Now it’s back with a vision for a new concept car called BMW i Vision Dee. Now the car demo showed 32 different colors.

It also had an augmented reality system through the windshield and an AI assistant named Dee. While the company goes for it Knight Rider Kitt fantasy car, things get strange with the “Digital Emotional Experience” of creating a car that is your friend laughing and joking.

Hollywood icon Arnold Schwarzenegger helped bring the car to life in a YouTube promotional video. I think we’re getting a little closer to the movie Hair, and that definitely feels weird. But maybe the day will come when a car that changes color will become normal. BMW says Dee is coming in 2025.

LG MoodUp brings the party to the kitchen

LG Electronics showed off its MoodUP technology for replacing the LED door panels on its refrigerators. It allows consumers to create a custom lighting scheme for the refrigerator with a wide range of vibrant colors to match their mood or environment.

You can also play music through the built-in Bluetooth speaker to set the tone in the kitchen, whether entertaining a crowd or enjoying a weeknight meal. You can control it with the LG ThinQ app, where you can choose from dozens of colors and multiple sizes. It has 190,000 color combinations.

You can also choose moods such as Season, Place, Heal and Pop. For example, Season uses the tones and hues of nature to represent different times of the year, while Healing evokes a sense of well-being through the use of soft, soothing colors, creating a calming mindfulness space. Because all the best parties happen in the kitchen. It’s coming this spring. Not to be outdone, Samsung has a refrigerator with a 32-inch screen.

Aromaplayer adds fragrance to your videos

Aromajoin announced its Aroma Player, which allows creators to customize their videos by adding their own scents. After getting a video from your own library or via a YouTube link, you can add scents to the timeline to set the perfect scent, timing, and duration for a scent to match your video.

Kyoto-based tech startup Aromajoin said the scented video platform was powered by its proprietary Aroma Shooter technology, which can switch between different scents without any delay. AromaPlayer is a web application that can be easily accessed from a Google Chrome browser. There are several hundred types of fragrances available, from coffee to orange.

LG Styler ShoeCare deodorizes your sneaker collection

Sneakerheads pay a lot for their shoes and probably go to great lengths to show them off. That is why LG Electronics has developed the LG Styler ShoeCase and the associated LG Styler ShoeCare. You can stack your sneaker collection in the different cases in the display. And you can also clean and deodorize the shoes with the TrueStream nozzles that freshen the shoe odor and absorb excess moisture. It takes 37 minutes to deodorize up to four pairs of shoes.

Kohler’s Aromatherapy Sprig Shower Heads

Kohler launched its Sprig shower systems that infuse your shower experience with aromatherapy. It’s like a spa in the bathroom with natural shower infusion capsules, versatile body and linen mists, and premium bath bombs that offer a tranquil escape through aromatherapy.

Sprig infusion systems can be retrofitted to an existing shower to diffuse aromatherapy into water, making it simple for people to get their dose of aromatherapy with your shower. It costs $140 for the shower system and $24 for the pods that you can use eight times each.

Block cutting board with built-in screen

The Block cutting board comes with a 13-inch by 20-inch display that you can use to watch recipe videos while you watch. With a $39 per month subscription, you can learn how to cook healthy and delicious meals through live and on-demand cooking classes led by expert chefs.

You can also detach the screen for cleaning. The price? $700. That’s more than your usual cutting board. I just use my iPhone for this. But Blok calls this the Peloton of the kitchen. While you’re at it, you might want to check out Samsung’s bespoke AI Wall Oven, which can livestream what you’re cooking and alert you if anything burns.

The Nowatch is not a watch on your wrist

Five years ago, Hylke Muntinga lost six friends in a year, they all died of an accident or illness. At a funeral, he realized he didn’t want to participate in the rat race anymore. And 2.5 years ago he discovered that he was going blind due to a rare disease. So he decided to make the Nowatch, which isn’t actually a watch. It is a watch-like wristband with a gemstone in the center. It has Philips fitness sensors. But its main function is to remind you not to know the time and to live in the moment, Muntinga told me in an interview at CES 2023. It starts at $387. It has sustainable packaging.

“It helps you live a more balanced life,” he said.

The Skyted voice suppression mask

SkyTed makes you look like Bain from the Batman movies. But the goal is not to make you menacing or distort your voice. The goal is to silence you.

You can use it as a mask that filters out viruses. But it can also allow you to make phone calls on airplanes or public places, talking as loudly as you like, with complete privacy. It uses the same technology to dampen aircraft engines in its design, so you can scream into the mask and no one but the person you’re calling can hear you. I could use one when playing games late at night, when I don’t want to wake the rest of the house with my screams.