5 on Friday: Products I’m Most Excited About From CES 2013

Is it just me, or has CES gotten a bit… boring this year? I really do not care about Smart TVs, 4k TVs, or OLED TVs. Ok, I just don’t care about TVs. Or iPhone cases, as seems to be the other big category.

  1. Pebble Watch – This is completely unnecessary, and will look ridiculous on my tiny wrist. I do not care. I want one. I want to be able to look at my watch and see my notifications. Never mind the fact that most days my phone sits next to be on my desk and I can easily see the notification light. There have been plenty of impractical smart watches in the past, but this one in particular has my attention. I think a lot of it has to do with its Kickstarter roots. It’s also the sleekest looking smart watch to date in my option.
  2. Open Source Phones: Ubuntu and Firefox are creating their own open source phones. These are poised to give us the open source mobile experience previously promised to us by Android. I’ll probably never use these as my main mobile OS, but whenever I upgrade my phone I’ll install Ubuntu on my Nexus just to try it out. These will never catch on of course, but it’s nice that we now have a true mobile OS for tinkerers.
  3. Valve’s Steam Box  – I can connect a small box to my TV and play Steam games? Take my money. I know I can do this with a PC, but I don’t want to. I want a small, easy to manage, simple solution. It seems the Steam Box will do all of this. I reiterate, take my money.
  4. FitBit Flex – As you know, I’ve been on this health kick lately. And I’ve been looking for the “just right” tracker to use. The Flex seems to be it. They have a nice Android app (even thought they won’t sync with phones other than the Note II and SIII but that’s because Samsung made it happen), it’s a bracelet form factor (which I love), and it does sleep tracking too. Plus I can change the wrist band color if I so choose. I have to ask FitBit still, but since I can take it out of its band I might even be able to wear it someplace else to make it usable for derby.
  5. Lego Mindstorms 3 – A fellow student used Mindstorm in a programming 101 class (skipping the GUI for C) and I’ve been lusting for them ever since. They’re even more expensive now (which means I’m even further from buying them) but I still want them. I just need to get some Arduino and Raspberry Pi stuff to distract me.
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One Response to “5 on Friday: Products I’m Most Excited About From CES 2013”
  1. Tyler Murphy says:

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