IoT For All at CES 2021: Here’s the IoT Content You Can’t Miss

CES is already rolling ahead at full steam, and despite the challenges that come with entirely virtual events, there is a ton of IoT news hitting the industry this week. Since we know the flood of content can be overwhelming, IoT For All is here to help. All week, we’ll be covering important IoT announcements and sharing briefings and interviews to bring you the most important news from the show. 

Today, we look ahead. Here's some of the content we’re most excited about at virtual CES 2021 and a few of the announcements that came from today’s slate of press conferences. 

News

Samsung Leads with AI

Big electronics player Samsung dropped a slew of cool Smart Home announcements, including next-gen TVs, refrigerators, and smartphones. These were innovative and interesting, but the real meat of the news was in the underlying AI integrations with these products. Dipping deep into the AI IoT (or AIoT) pool, Samsung said it's set out to create a new kind of Smart Home experience, with washing machines that optimize water use and TVs that can upscale HD content into 8K resolution through a “Quantum AI Processor.”

With that goal in mind, Samsung announced the JetBot 90 AI+ vacuum cleaner that reportedly can use object recognition, LiDAR, and 3D sensors to identify the best cleaning path; Samsung Bot Care, which is designed to use AI to recognize and respond to users’ behavior as both a robotic assistant and companion that can learn schedules and habits to get better at its job; and the Samsung Bot Handy that the company said will act as a task assistant by relying on advanced AI to recognize and pick up objects to help with work around the house. 

“At Samsung, we are always looking for ways to build a better, more sustainable future,” said Sandeep Rana, Senior Manager, Environmental Sustainability Specialist, Samsung. “With a focus on the environment, people, and society, we will continue to provide our consumers with responsible tools and technologies to address our challenges today and enable a better future for all.”

Bosch Offers Health and AI

German company Bosch announced several AIoT products, most of them health-centered and designed to address the coronavirus pandemic and target climate change concerns. 

“We combine AI and connectivity to form the AIoT, which helps us improve energy efficiency and fight the coronavirus,” says Michael Bolle, Bosch board of management member. “AIoT offers enormous potential. We are already unlocking this potential and plan to expand our efforts in the future.” 

Bosch made many announcements leveraging this AIoT strategy, and here are some of the ones we thought were the most important. In the healthcare space, the company unveiled a learning AI sensor in use in several applications, including one that measures ambient air quality and relative humidity that Bosch said can determine the concentration of aerosols like COVID-19 virus in the air. On the sustainability front, Bosch announced an energy manager for the Smart Home that reportedly can be combined with a heat pump and photovoltaic system to cut energy consumption by up to 60 percent

Our favorite Bosch news was out of this world, quite literally. According to the announcement, Bosch is joining forces with the companies Astrobotic and WiBotic, and the University of Washington to research and develop technology to intelligently navigate and wirelessly charge small robots for operation on the moon as part of NASA’s Tipping Point program. Bosch AI-based intelligent data analysis and wireless connectivity solutions being developed for the project will further flow into AIoT solutions back on earth, the company said.

Caterpillar Makes Mining Automatic

Perhaps the most surprising company making a big splash at the Consumer Electronics Show is Caterpillar. Despite not being a consumer company, the construction and earth-moving giant hit the show hard, outlining its CAT Mine Star autonomous mining trucks and operations with Imperial Oil in Canada. There were several impressive takeaways, but the most critical one was safety: there have been zero accidents from their autonomous mining so far, Caterpillar said during the press conference.

This results from consistent safety practices and behavior through AI and autonomous programming, which contrasts with a human operation that is sometimes unpredictable, which the company says causes a plurality of accidents.

This Week’s Key Sessions

There is an abundance of IoT and AI content happening at CES, as you might expect. To help break through the noise, we’ve curated a shortlist of a few of the ones we’re most looking forward to checking out. We hope we’ll (virtually) see you there! 

John Deere: Feeding The World With Precision Tech
Jahmy Hindman, CTO, Deere & Company, and Michael Josh Villanueva, Gadget Match, team up to show how farmers can use IoT technology and insights from data to feed the world on January 12 at 1:45 PM Eastern. 

Schneider Electric: Smart Sustainable Homes (EU)
Schneider Electric believes the home of the future will be both smart and sustainable, through implementing IoT devices and networks, green energy sources, and AI-enabled management analytics. Get in on the discussion January 13 at 8:15 AM Eastern.

Digital Transformation & the Connected Consumer
The Digital Transformation revolution is upon us, and it’s enabling the development and delivery of new and enriched experiences. Businesses can get closer to consumers, refine products to enrich the customer experience, and help with the jobs that need to get done. This talk believes that reinventing the consumer experience is only part of the equation, and we need to learn how companies are also leveraging digital to solve global challenges. January 13 at 9:45 AM Eastern.

The Cloud Conundrum: Why Architecture Matters?
Roger Premo, GM of Corporate Strategy, IBM, and Pranay Ahlawat, Associate Director of Enterprise Software & Cloud, Boston Consulting Group, will discuss the evolution of software applications, why traditional software architectures won’t scale in the future, and why the architecture you choose matters today on January 13 at 2:30 PM Eastern. 

Retail’s New Look: Shopper's Little Helpers
Robin Raskin, of Solving for Tech, Kass Dawson, of SoftBank Robotics, Will Graylin, of OV Loop, Wayne Liu, of Perfect Corp, and Val Vacante, of LiveArea, will make up a panel focused on how robotics, computer vision, and IoT are set to reinvigorate retail. The key? Using Innovative solutions to personalize and speed up shopping. Check it out on January 13 at 4:15 PM Eastern.