Remotely Possible

CES 2018 is coming! Here's our preview of the upcoming tech-fest.

CES is known for being a high-tech love-fest, where approximately 180,000 strangers gather to gawk at geeky gadgets—some of which will never see the bright light of day shining outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. CES 2019 was no exception. There was more new, high-tech stuff than any single human being could see, even over the course of the six days this human being was in attendance.

Maybe I’m still suffering the aftereffects of installation overstimulation at CEDIA last month, but it seems that everywhere I turn someone’s talking up home automation. Yesterday, for example, Control4 issued a press release touting – and rightly so – the many benefits of integrating home security systems with home automation systems. While that’s definitely awesome, the more interesting buzz that I’ve noticed lately isn’t about Home Automation, where the cost of the hardware, installation, and programming is often discussed in terms of a percentage of the cost of the home it’s installed in. No, the chatter du jour is about home automation “for the rest of us” (to borrow a term from Apple that originally had nothing to do with price, nor does it now). Once again, there’s a push to bring home automation to the masses – or at least to the smaller masses who would be willing to spend a couple hundred bucks for it.

But what kind of home automation can you get for $200 or maybe, if you’re willing to splurge, $300?

There’s no dearth of smart outlets with Wi-Fi connectivity, but you might not know of their existence because they really don’t get much ink (or pixels) in the press. Fancy smart home hubs and biometric door locks are much more exciting to talk about than an electrical outlet that you can turn on and off via Wi-Fi using an app on your smartphone. I’ve fallen into the same “been there, written about that” trap myself. But a review sample of the Smart Outlet from ConnectSense showed up on my doorstep a few days after CES 2016 ended, and it is a Wi-Fi-enabled smart outlet that’s definitely worth spending some time talking about.

It won’t make international news (or national news, for that matter), nor will it overshadow coverage of the latest dazzling Kickstarter darling in most of the tech press outlets. But the three new home entertainment and automation controllers Control4 announced (and began shipping!) today are likely to be the most exciting and impactful smart home-related hardware that will actually make it into people’s homes in all of 2016—and I say that fully cognizant of the fact that we have 11 more months yet to go in the year.

Although not associated with Stephen King and his his horror novel of the same name, smart firewall maker, CUJO, says that there are over 20 billion internet connected devices worldwide as of 2017. These devices include internet-connected TVs, refrigerators, thermostats, security cameras, home automation systems, and even baby monitors. Surprisingly, most of these devices have little, if any, security measures built-in, a situation which is essentially equivalent to leaving all the doors and windows in your home wide open with a sign on the lawn saying, “Take what you want.” If you have children in your home, there’s the additional worry of dangerous, devious, and/or deviant web sites that are waiting to be discovered by the youngsters who have access to the internet through your home network.

CUJO is a friendly looking, tabletop device with LED status “eyelids” embedded on the front. CUJO uses artificial...

Despite the fact that CES2016 hasn't even officially opened yet, DISH's press conference is likely to be one of the top highlights of the entire Show this year.