You can tell a lot about the future by the technology that you see in the present. 

Okay, maybe we don’t have the flying cars or autonomous driving vehicles yet - and maybe we’ll need a little more time to see the metaverse come to life or to see the next phase of communication as we know it, or to see what else is in store for mobile devices - but we’re already looking at a future that is autonomous, app-driven, and puts the user in control of their own data. We’re looking at a future that’s accessible. We’re looking at a future that offers opportunities for everyone. 

CES 2023 has come and gone, and a lot of what we’ve seen is interesting: from the super-spec laptops to electric vehicles that we want to get our hands on yesterday, to the variations on smartwatches, and a whole range of things in-between. 

But beyond interesting, there’s the stuff that’s going to change the way we look at technology, the way the mobile device changed the internet, the way the internet changed the world. 

Here’s our top five CES 2023 inventions, and how they’re going to influence the future. 

      1. Nourished x Neutrogena Skin360 Skinstacks

Health and technology are linked together like Newport beach and photographers, and it makes a lot of sense that health tech is one of the categories that we’re going to see growing for the future. With an increasing number of consumers becoming more interested in their health, new and accessible health tech is one of the categories that 2023 and beyond will be built on, and not just because it’s new and interesting. 

Health technology has always put its information in the hands of the people. While a smartwatch won’t replace a trained medical opinion, it can give you the information to take to the doctor, it can pinpoint what you’re feeling and how to explain it, and it can really make the process fast and easy to understand. The Nourished x Neutrogena skinstacks take it one step further by personalising health tech: printing custom supplements that can help boost your health in a ton of ways and doesn’t require a medical opinion. Instead, it needs a smartphone, good lighting, a few pictures of your face, and your input: what do you want your skin to look like?

Wellness is on the rise, and apps and creations like this are helping it to go even further, even faster. By creating a product that you can customise down to the very smallest factor, it’s a product that has sudden widespread appeal, and a product that paves the way to better health for anyone. 

      2. Eargo 7

Here’s another on the health tech side: hearing aids that require no appointment before you actually purchase them, no medical diagnosis, and no need to go through the red tape of insurance companies because they’re available over the counter. Not only are they super sleek and small, they’re rechargeable, with the same excellent audio support that comes from traditional hearing aids at a fraction of the cost. 

Cost is a big concern for a lot of consumers: we’re in a financial crisis where cost is a stopping point for many, and while the Eargo hearing aids aren’t cheap, they’re built to be long-lasting and to look good. The tech world is leaning towards creating personal aid devices that possess the same build quality and aesthetics as a smartphone or a smart watch while being unintrusive and comfortable. Wearables have never dropped out of popularity, and neither have they struggled to maintain their marketshare. However we’ll be seeing a far bigger variety of wearables from 2023 onwards than we have before - and that opens up new opportunities for SMEs to build, code, and create the app that runs these wearables. 

      3. Nuwa Pen

Accessibility: it’s the future of technology, and it’s what we keep seeing over and over again at CES 2023. Here’s another example - the Nuwa Pen, a pen that works with standard ink cartridges and turns written text into typed notes for easier reading, better searchability, and much easier portability. The technology to transform writing into text has been around for a while, but it’s interesting to see that it’s becoming more mainstream. The fact that it works with several apps also highlights another interesting feature of tech post 2023: the interoperability of apps, and how we’re moving towards a greater ecosystem of data. 

And that will need people to work on it. Data doesn’t organise itself: there will be a demand, in the future, for companies to organise and make that data readable and available. 

      4. NoWatch Smartwatch

More people are working from home or in hybrid work situations than ever. More people are working longer hours than ever. It’s a situation that’s rife with the possibility of burnout, and as a result, it’s a situation that needs monitoring. That’s what the NoWatch Smartwatch does - it monitors your stress levels through your heart rate and your sweat glands, and it lets you know when it’s about to become a problem, and helps you stave off those problems. With our lives becoming more, not less, complicated, having a helpful eye to keep a watch on your stress levels is the kind of thing that tech like this is built for. It’s connected to an app that suggests what you can do to lower your stress levels, and it’s a good secondary step to what healthcare tech already does: highlight the problem, if not necessarily solve it. 

We’re used to depending on technology for a significant amount of information. 2023 has shown that that dependency isn’t going anywhere, and that the technology we’re using now is getting far more sophisticated. 

      5. Ring Car Cam

Ring has done a lot for peace of mind: put a Ring doorbell on your house, and you’re at least aware of what’s going on when you’re not there, and can take steps in a crisis. However, Ring has a significant track record in IoT security breaches. With new Ring products coming out, it’s likely that this will highlight the demand for an increase in IoT security measures, and it shows just how important monitoring devices have become to our daily lives. From dash cams to home security systems, Ring isn’t the only company that has brought out monitoring tech, and as the tech itself moves beyond the home, there’s ample opportunities for SMEs to become part of the solution to the IoT breaches that we mentioned earlier. 

As for why monitoring tech has become so popular lately: we’re used to having constant access to our belongings, and being able to tap into an app and see what’s going on at home has become the norm. In the future, these monitoring systems are only going to get smaller and more refined, so the work on improving their security should start now. 

CES 2023 showed a lot more than just the few examples we talked about today, but the overarching theme of CES remains the same: through technology, we can do great things, and with technology, we can push our limitations even further - not in a way that harms us, but in ways that can help. 

If you have an idea for tech that can help, talk to us about it: we’re always happy to work on projects that can contribute to  a better future for everyone.