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Overview
Want to never kill a pot plant again? Figure out which teeth you're not brushing? Print your own pizzas at home? Sure, we're moving swiftly toward the Simpsons-predicted Ultrahouse 3000, but 2015 is looking pretty bright for gadget-lovers wanting to make their lives that little bit better.
With CES 2015 having wrapped up this week in Las Vegas, technological developments have been on everyone's lips, feed and minds. With self-driving cars, 4K televisions and virtual reality developments at the forefront of the convention's announcements, more domestic (and somewhat more accessible) inventions got us pretty psyched for the year to come.
SMART TOOTHBRUSHES
You skipped a brush. You know it. Your significant other probably knows it. Your coworkers bitch about it. But until now, you haven't been held accountable, really. Now, you'll have no excuses with the development of the smart toothbrush. Oral-B's bluetooth-enabled brush was revealed last October, but Vigilant newcomer the Rainbow made more waves at CES this week. Making a game out of the often tedious chore of brushing your teeth, the Vigilant Rainbow allows for interactive games while you brush. According to the makers, the toothbrush knows its location inside your mouth (somewhat terrifying, right?) and tells the brusher, via the app, which teeth still need attention. Your risk of developing cavities just plummeted, go team.
SMART FLOWER POTS
Never kill another pot plant again; some equally neglectful genius has created a smart flower pot for you. Showcased at CES, the Parrot Pot uses sensors to analyse your plant and track temperature, sunlight, moisture, fertiliser and growth, using an in-built watering system to make sure ol' ferny gets watered and fed when it's in need. Connected through bluetooth and managed by an app, you can keep an eye on your plant at all times — a good one for the perpetually holidaying or casually inept.
FLOATING SPEAKERS
Because when you're cranking Jamie XX in the office, you deserve the right to a little wizardry while you're at it. Floating speakers made a few appearances at CES this year, both levitating and water-friendly. Levitating speakers, while quite honestly not the best use of levitation, dropped a few jaws this week. The Air2 (pronounced Air Squared) uses strong magnets to create that creepy hovering effect — a feature that also allows the speaker to stick to magnetic surfaces. Water-wise, Monster have created a floating speaker promoted by legendary slam dunker Shaquille O’Neal — dubbed The SuperStar BackFloat (really). The speaker can be submerged underwater and floats on the surface, perfect for pool parties.
FOOD PRINTERS
While 3D printing and food printing has been around for quite a while now, several major players debuted their wares at CES this week. Most impressively, XYZprinting are geared up to release their at-home Da Vinci 3D printer later in 2015, a machine that was printing everything from dinosaur-shaped lollies to pepperoni-dotted pizzas over the week. According to Mashable, the food designs (technically, recipes) are approved by a 'foodie guru', stored in XYZPrinting’s cloud-based service and sent to the printer — connected via USB to Windows 7 and 8 and Mac OSX systems. Costing around $3000, this exxy little appliance is still in the upper rungs of accessibility but one step closer to widespread domestic use.
SMARTER WIFI KETTLE
Although it has one of the blandest taglines of a new product ever — 'It's more than just a kettle' — the Smarter kettle is truly simple and 100 percent awesome. Using an app (naturally), you can pre-boil your water from anywhere in the house using wifi. Apparently, the team have worked out this will save you up to two days a year of waiting around for the kettle to boil (five minutes at a time). You can set the kettle to 'Wake' and 'Home' mode, so it automatically starts boiling at times when you're in the need for caffeine, and you can adjust the boiling temperature (hardcore tea drinkers, you know what's up here). The stainless steel kettle sends you a message to tell you when your hot water is ready, and reminds you to refill. Super simple, but super useful.
WOODEN TOUCH TABLETS
Less a huge, jaw-dropping technological development, more a super, super pretty Thing. Aiming to unpack multifaceted devices and get things back to single purpose party times, Bang & Olufsen have created the BeoSound Moment, a device solely dedicated to playing music — we know, right, how 'old school' of them. As with any music playing device, the Beosound Moment nabs your music from the cloud and tries to tailor your playlists to your preferences; nothing new here. But the prettiest part of B & O's tablet is the fact that one side is completely covered in wood — something the company maintain has never been done before with a sensitive, touchable interface. There's a volume adjusting wheel set into the oak — yep, with a function reminiscent of the ol' iPod. So while this isn't anything groundbreaking in terms of music players, this is some seriously nice design.
SMART BELT
This has seen quite a bit of news already this year, but Emiota's smart belt is a classic first world development. Basically, the Belty (adorable) senses tension and adjusts accordingly — so if you've stuffed yourself silly at Christmas lunch, your belt will do the unbuckling for you. It's not just for big ol' pig-outs though, the belt will sense if you've put on weight — it's connected to smartphone app, which also monitors your activity during the day.
THE MELOMIND HEADSET
Stressing out gets the better of all of us, whatever walk of life you're careening down right now. Everyone has their brilliant strategies to de-stress, Zen out and find their centre again — watching Attenborough documentaries, cranking some Debussy, working out to Tay Tay; whatever your vice. But a new headset called Melomind could be the answer to your stressfest. Developed by the team at myBrain, the Melomind is a brand new gadget that uses contact points to measure your brain activity. Sending the results to a smartphone app, the Melomind then plays music to match your state of mind. And nope, we're not talking Enya or rain sounds; it's specially composed music engineered to train your brain to relax. Set for release in Europe by September 2015, the Melomind will set you back around US$300.
HONORABLE MENTION: LG'S TWIN WASH
Shout out to LG's new Twin Wash system, which allows you to put on both your darks and lights at the same time. For anyone interested in taking care of their clothes, but wanting to maximise time out of the laundry, this is a certifiable booyah. Cahmahn.
Via Mashable, The Verge, TechCrunch and Gizmodo.