CES 2020 The world just got smarter

From security cameras to robots to automatic toilet roll deliveries, here’s a glimpse into next year’s smart tech

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There’s little better predictor for what the tech future holds than CES, the annual Las Vegas trade show that traditionally kicks off the year. Major companies turn up to show off new releases, fancy prototypes, and fresh technologies; there’s a slight underlying thread of one-upsmanship between business competitors, which extends all the way from the size of their booths to the brightness of their screens. 2020’s show was absolutely no different – and much of the war was fought on the smart home battlefield.

Let’s take the camera sector as an example. We saw a high profile smart camera from Arlo, which unveiled its Pro 3 Floodlight ($249, around £190), a wireless cam with a wired option, toting a bright and customisable floodlight around its 2K HDR sensor – check out our review on p84. We saw another from fast rising company Abode, which revealed its Indoor/Outdoor Smart Camera ($199, around £150), a tiny device which ties into the company’s Cue automation system and (we understand) has been submitted for HomeKit certification, which means it may one day add to the unjustly slim pickings in that department.

Eve, probably HomeKit’s biggest supporter, went one step better revealing the indoor-only Eve Cam (£TBC), due to start shipping in April. The cloud-free cam is the first camera designed exclusively for Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video protocol, and it’ll assuage the fears of those who don’t like their footage running through some anonymous server who-knows-where online. Security firm ADT also unveiled a trio of cameras which will (eventually) get HomeKit support. We’re half convinced that the HomeKit camera market might actually come to something...