CES 2018 Top Trends & Gear

By Sarah Kingsbury Updated 01/12/2018

In this special episode, the iPhone Life team shares their overall impressions and favorite new gadgets from the 2018 Consumer Electonics Show in Las Vegas.

Click here to listen and subscribe. If you like what you hear, be sure to leave a review. And remember to tune in every other week to hear our editors share with you the latest Apple news, best apps, iPhone tricks, and coolest accessories.

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This episode is brought to you by Matias and FullContact. Apple recently discontinued its Wired Keyboard. But have no fear, Matias has stepped in to provide a Wired Aluminum Keyboard ($59) of equal value and arguably better quality. The built-in hub with multiple ports is great for connecting your wired mouse and other devices and the Mac-friendly function keys make it easy to transition.  FullContact (free) seamlessly manages all of your Contacts from various sources. The app looks for updates, shows you any duplicate contacts so you can merge them, and even allows you to scan and add business cards quickly, easily, and accurately

Question of the week:

Which of gear from CES 2018 are you most excited about? Email podcasts@iphonelife.com to let us know.

Top CES gear referred to in this episode:

All names and prices in this list are as accurate as possible, but may change as manufacturers bring them to market.

Useful links:

Transcription of Episode 74:

Donna Cleveland:               Hi and welcome to Episode 74 of the iPhone Life Podcast. I'm Donna Cleveland, editor in chief at iPhone Life.

David Averbach:                  I'm David Averbach, CEO and publisher of iPhone Life.

Conner Carey:                       I'm Connor Carey, feature web writer at iPhone Life.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 And I'm Sarah Kingsbury, senior web editor at iPhone Life.

Donna Cleveland:               We have a special episode for you today. We're in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show for 2018. So, excuse the sound quality, because we're all huddles around one mic here in the hotel.

David Averbach:                  And I think this is our first four-person podcast ever.

Conner Carey:                       It is.

David Averbach:                  So, the combination of not having ideal sound equipment, and having four people, we're going to wing it. Hopefully it sounds okay, but we're really excited because we've got an awesome show for you.

Conner Carey:                       We do, yeah. We want to tell you about our overall impressions of the show, and then also share with you the award winners that we've picked out. So we've been scouring the show floors to find the coolest products for iPhone and iPad users ... so all of you guys ... and want to tell you what you should know about and what you might want to be buying soon. Some of them are available. Some will be in the first or second quarter of the year.

                                                      So, before we get into the episode though, we want to talk to you about our sponsor. We have two sponsors this episode. But our first one is Matias with their wired keyboard.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, so we actually ... One of the fun things about CS is we get the opportunity to meet with our sponsors and talk to them and see what's new. So we actually got to meet with Matias and we got to see their new keyboards. And Matias is one of my favorite companies because they focus on one thing and they're perfectionists about it. And so what they focus on is keyboards. And they're great at keyboards. And that's something that everybody, obviously, who has a computer needs a keyboard. And you'd be amazed at the difference between a high-quality keyboard and low-quality keyboard.

                                                      So this keyboard is a wired keyboard. So what happened was Apple used to produce this keyboard that was a USB connection. You could plug it into the back of your computer. And they discontinued creating it. So Matias has created a worthy successor for this product. It looks and feels like an Apple product. It's more affordable than Apple's keyboards are. And it's a very high-quality keyboard. Matias is obsessed with keyboards. So make sure you check it out. There's kind of two types of people. If you travel a lot, Bluetooth keyboards are great, and Matias makes a really great Bluetooth keyboard, as well. But if this is something ... If you have a computer at home that you want to plug a keyboard into, being able to plug it in is nice because then you don't have to worry about connectivity.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Charging.

Conner Carey:                       Or battery.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. And also, one thing I always recommend is having a keyboard that has a numeric keypad ... it's so convenient ... and Matias's does. So make sure you check it out. We'll have a link in the show notes. So go to iPhoneLife.com/Podcast

Donna Cleveland:               And a few of us use Matias keyboards at the office. So we really have had the chance to vet them for ourselves and our big fans. So, throw that out there.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, I have the Bluetooth keyboard plugged into my computer ... well, not plugged in, but connected to my computer at the office and I love it because the battery lasts for a year.

Donna Cleveland:               Yes. I also use their Bluetooth keyboard and I love it.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, exactly. So, we love the products that we promote to you guys.

Donna Cleveland:               Next up, we want to tell you about our overall impressions of CES. So, most of the time that we've been spending in the halls that have iPhone and iPad products, but we also have had a chance to look around a little bit more to see some of the bigger trends that we thought you guys might be interested in. So I think David wanted to start us off with that.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. Well, I think, real quick, it's important because we're so steeped in the tech world that CES is just a really big deal to us. But if you listen to this and you don't know what we're talking about, let's explain what CES is first, and then we'll give our general trends.

                                                      So CES stands for Consumer Electronics Show. It's the biggest tech show in the world. And someone was telling me yesterday that it might be the biggest show in the world. It's definitely up there.

Conner Carey:                       Wow.

Donna Cleveland:               There are more than 200,000 people here this year. 

David Averbach:                  So, it's mayhem. I mean, it takes up literally the entirety of Las Vegas. The entire ... All the convention centers are taken up. And there's so many people here with consumer electronics products. And so what we do is we come every year and we scour the entirety of Las Vegas to find the coolest products that are coming out in 2018. Because what people do is they come here and they release new products. So, is that a good overview? Did I miss anything?

Conner Carey:                       I think that was good. I mean, you didn't mention how horrible the traffic is.

David Averbach:                  Oh, my god. It's horrible. Well, imagine 200,000 people packed into, for the most part, one building, the Las Vegas Convention Center. And it's mayhem.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, and there was a big blackout yesterday, too. The power went out in a big part of the convention center. So that was interesting.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. That, and also it rained the first day. Which, in Las Vegas it never rains. And so, apparently, the Las Vegas Convention Center decided that they didn't need roofs, that that prevented rain from getting in.

Donna Cleveland:               So it was raining into the central hall.

David Averbach:                  And Google had a massive booth outside, and they didn't make it rain-proof, so they had to shut it down. So it's been an adventure here. But we went through it so that we could sit here and tell you guys about the coolest products.

                                                      So, I'm going to start. We're just going to go around and share our overall impressions of the show and then get into our award winners.

                                                      What I look for every year is what are the trends in the industry. And people come here not just with products that they're releasing for 2018, but they come here with kind of showcase pieces. Things that may be not coming out in 2018 but are coming out sometime soon. And so you get a feel for where's the industry going.

                                                      And so my first big take-away is Alexa is taking over the world. Every product was an Alexa product. And if you don't know, Alexa is Amazon's personal assistant. It's kind of Amazon's version of Siri. And they built the Amazon Echo, which has Alexa built in. But what they did—

Conner Carey:                       Which is a Bluetooth speaker and a Smart Speaker.

David Averbach:                  Yes, exactly.

                                                      What they did is they opened it up to outside developers through what's called an API.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Very Smart.

David Averbach:                  And so, now, anybody can have an "Alexa Compatible Device" and, it turns out, everyone has one at CES. And so I think that's really my first big take-away, is after attending this show, I'm convinced that voice is going to be the new operating system. It's, I think, moving forward. And it's not going to happen in 2018. It's probably not going to happen in 2019. But over the next 5 to 10 years, I think that's going to be the main way that we interact with devices, at least in our home. Maybe not in our office, but at least around our home. Everything's going to be connected, and everything's going to be able to be controlled via voice.

Conner Carey:                       So you better watch what you say in the future, I guess.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. Everything's going to be recorded for the government. No.

                                                      And Apple's way behind.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, I know.

                                                      Yeah, I have the Amazon Echo and they have tens of thousands of skills and different things that you can do with it. I definitely have been taking advantage of all of them. But that's one way that they're behind is what it can do.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Siri is still misunderstanding what I say like 85% of the time.

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               I may have an abusive relationship with Siri where I am the abuser. Because I—

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

                                                      Well, not only ... Because I don't think Amazon Alexa is perfect either.

Donna Cleveland:               No, it's definitely not.

David Averbach:                  But the thing that they're particularly behind in is having developer support. In other words, everything already is integrated with Alexa, and to some degree, Google Home, as well. Or, what is it? Google Assistant?

Donna Cleveland:               Google Assistant.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah.

David Averbach:                  So, I think that both of those have so many things that are starting to integrate. So I'll give you some examples here. One of our award winners was a light switch that's Amazon Alexa compatible. So you walk in a room and you say, "Turn on my light," and it'll turn on. We'll get into that in a little bit later. There's refrigerators that are Amazon Alexa compatible, so you can ask it, "Do I have milk in my refrigerator?" And it'll answer.

Donna Cleveland:               That's so cool.

David Averbach:                  And so, you can imagine an Alexa compatible home and using Alexa to control all of your devices in your home and in your car. And then you think about Apple, and they're not connected to anyone else right now. And they don't have an API. And they will always only work for Apple products, right? They're not going to work for if you have an Android device in your home. And so it's a really difficult position for Apple to be in.

Donna Cleveland:               Well, and it's interesting because a lot of these speakers are not just Alexa compatible, they are also Google compatible. And so you can really switch between platforms. You're not really married to one ecosystem. But then Apple just really walls us off and if people are really eager to be getting these voice assistant things, they're going to go get them. They're everywhere. And, when the HomePod finally comes out someday, they're going to already be locked into those ecosystems.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Yeah, and if the HomePod comes out with Siri as is, it's not going to ... It's just not going to work. I don't feel like it's even going to be on the same level as Alexa if they don't really upgrade Siri.

Conner Carey:                       I think that's why they've been positioning it mostly as a music player. Your personal DJ. Because they can't do ... It's not going to be able to do all the other things that Alexa can do.

                                                      But, in defense of Apple, I do feel like overall they still offer a better experience. So if you're willing to stay in the ecosystem, you're fine. But I guess I do ... Siri, I agree, isn't perfect and definitely there's frustrations there. But overall my experience with Apple has been better than with anything else. Like setting up my Amazon Echo was kind of annoying.

David Averbach:                  I agree. It was difficult to do.

Conner Carey:                       Figuring out the skills, it's just not the same as Apple.

David Averbach:                  I think the area ... Having followed Apple for so many years now, Apple always does this. They're never the first to market with a product, they're the best to market with a product.

                                                      And so it was the same thing for years. People were saying Apple was behind on Smartphone, but all the Smartphones that were out there were awful. And then iPhone came out and it was great. And so Apple, I think, will improve Siri. They will have a good experience. But where they're particularly behind is the Alexa skills. Alexa has so many ... has a whole ecosystem developed around it now and Apple doesn't. When it comes out, there aren't going to be third-party skills that work with it. And that takes years to develop. And I'm seeing companies like LG, and Sony having already baked-in Alexa. And it's going to take a while for Siri to catch up to those things.

Conner Carey:                       And some examples of skills would be like ordering pizza from Domino's, that you just say, "Hey, I would like a pizza from Domino's," to Alexa and then it's on it's way. Stuff like that.

David Averbach:                  Exactly, "Read me the news."

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, yeah. I get my news briefs from New York Times and different sites with Alexa every day, which is really awesome. Different partnerships like that, you're right, Apple hasn't put attention on that.

David Averbach:                  So, we've got a lot to cover here. I want to hear what you have to say, too.

                                                      Conner, this was your first ever CES?

Conner Carey:                       It was.

David Averbach:                  What do you think? Have you survived it?

Conner Carey:                       I've survived it, which is wonderful. I think my biggest take-away ... I was pretty flabbergasted by the amount of work these companies put into each of their displays.

Donna Cleveland:               Flabbergasted, good word.

Conner Carey:                       Thanks.

                                                      Some of them built like two-story spaces.

David Averbach:                  Oh, it's nuts.

Conner Carey:                       It's amazing.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, it's like a full-on construction zone project.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah. Yeah, and I think ... I read this article, I think on Apple Insider where this guy was really cutting into ... He compared CES to the Yellow Pages, saying that it was really outdated, and I felt like he kind of missed the point. Because I feel like there's so much remote contact, there's so much email and this and that, but the value of being able to meet the people who I work with remotely. I met multiple PR contacts. I've emailed them for a year, and I got to meet them. And I think that is really cool. So, my biggest take-away is the relationships that you get to develop here I think are invaluable both as a business and as a person who's interested in these things.

Donna Cleveland:               You're right. That face-to-face connection is still so important, even though you can do so much now that ... Now that most things are done online, I guess CES doesn't have quite the same relevance, but it still feels—

Conner Carey:                       Epic

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, it's changed my relationship with people that I contact a lot, too.

Conner Carey:                       Exactly. But I mean, from just the side of the devices ... You know, PR people are paid to make the things they're selling sound really cool. And it's really nice to actually get your hands on, and try it out, and ask the questions that they might not want to answer and avoid and their press releases. And find out what you actually are excited about and do want to review and share with your readers throughout the next year.

David Averbach:                  I also think it ... You get a chance to see the people behind the products. Because one of the things we try to do is bring you the best products for your iPhone, but also the best manufactured products, and hopefully from the best people.

                                                      And so when you're here, it's very obvious what people are using low-quality manufacturing and what people are using high-quality manufacturing. And you get a feel for what type of company they are, and it does affect our coverage of like, these people are really nice people, and these people are really not nice people. And if the not-nice people have a great product, we'll tell you about it, but there's certain ... It's nice to see the people behind the companies and get a feeling for that.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, you can tell the companies that also have a lot of pride in their products, like a lot of the speakers where they're really like, "Come, listen to these headphones," or like, "We'll play you from these speakers," because they can really stand behind what they're doing. Whereas the other ones, it's kind of like, "We're not going to play this for you."

David Averbach:                  No, that's a great way of saying. It's not like these are nice people, it's like these people care, and these people just made headphones because it's a thing to make money on. And the people that care inevitably make better products, and it helps to know that.

Conner Carey:                       Exactly.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, for sure.

                                                      What were you going to say, Conner?

Conner Carey:                       No, you covered exactly what I was going to say.

Donna Cleveland:               Another big trend I noticed was wireless chargers.

Conner Carey:                       Yes, huge.

Donna Cleveland:               And so, Apple coming out with the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 10 that support wireless charging, all of the companies were saying, "Android phones have had wireless charging for a long time," But now, it's universal. Everybody, whatever device you're having, is using wireless charging and using the same platform with the Qi wireless charging.

                                                      So we saw a lot of cool wireless chargers and ones that are integrated into interesting other products like—

Conner Carey:                       Speakers, especially.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, speakers. There were some more I can't remember now, but ...

David Averbach:                  Every year in the iOS world, there's kind of a micro-theme for a while. Like, when I first started coming here, it was cases. Everybody though ... Well, I mean, cases are obviously a big deal. But this year, definitely, the theme in the iOS world was everything had a wireless charger.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, there were some true wireless earbuds that come in a little charging case that was also ... You could use that wireless charger to charge your phone and so that was pretty cool.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Except for that wasn't a wireless charging of your phone.

Conner Carey:                       It wasn't?

Sarah Kingsbury:                 No. You had to plug it in.

Conner Carey:                       Well.

Donna Cleveland:               But that was like [inaudible 16:12].

Sarah Kingsbury:                 [inaudible 16:09]. Sorry, I just didn't want people to get so excited.

                                                      There are. Just like they're putting Alexa in everything, they're also just slapping a wireless charger on it?

David Averbach:                  Yeah. And again, that's where coming here and seeing it ... You can see the people who did it thoughtfully and the people who just, "Oh, and it has a wireless charger now." You know what I mean.

                                                      And that's one of those things, when you go around and you look, you can see some of the wireless chargers are really difficult to use, they're not a well-designed, well-manufactured thing. And some of them, like some of our award winners, are really awesome.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, and we'll definitely, in our blog post, we'll have links to all the products, because you might be interested in getting some of them. It's iPhoneLife.com/Podcast

                                                      Once last thing I wanted to mention with impressions was the LG little cave/tunnel we got to go through. So they have bendable TV screens now.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Curved screens, yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, so they made this sort of like cave-like structure with their bended ... to show off how the screens could bend. It was amazing.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, it's an OLED screen, which is ... LG has been specializing that for a while, which is now, obviously the iPhone 10 has it. It's a much higher quality screen, and they're making it so thin that, like you're saying, you can literally bend it. And it's nuts.

Donna Cleveland:               Wow. It was incredible.

Conner Carey:                       But what's cool about bending it? That's the one thing. It was cool, the display was amazing, but I was like, "Do I want a bendable TV?"

David Averbach:                  To be honest, I'm not totally sure. And this is where we're saying sometimes CES can be gaudy and you're not sure how it applies. But I think what's cool about it is having the ability to manufacture a really high-quality screen that's that thin.

Conner Carey:                       So you don't have a big, chunky TV in your living room.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, it's literally ... I think it's pretty close to, I don't think it's literally paper-thin, but it's figuratively paper-thin. It's very thin, and that's very valuable.

Conner Carey:                       Careful how we use the word literally.

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

                                                      Okay, so I want to move on to our award winners.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, but before, we need to talk about our second sponsor.

David Averbach:                  And also, I think we sort of skipped over Sarah. Do you have any other thoughts?

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I was just going to say that there is a roll-able TV. So it just kind of rolls up like maybe a projector screen. And you have to have a bendable TV screen for that. So that's pretty exciting, to just have a small, very discreet thing in your living room that can just ... then an actual TV will come out of it and then just go away when you're done. Because TVs are often not the most attractive item in your living space.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, it's true.

David Averbach:                  I've got a couple last thoughts on trends, but before I get into it, do you guys have any other last thoughts?

Donna Cleveland:               I noticed all of the speaker-makers, except maybe the ones who were specifically in the audiophile area, are really focusing on rugged speakers that can be used outdoors and thrown around and tossed in the water a lot more. It seemed like every speaker had that. So that's cool, that speakers are becoming just much more portable.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, and I would say with earbuds, too. That was another trend we say. And we saw this last year, too, but wireless earbuds are taking over.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 The true wireless, yeah. And I'm excited.

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

Conner Carey:                       Can you explain true wireless?

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Well, basically a lot of the wireless headphones or earbuds, they're actually attached to each other with a wire. And there's often some little thing that rests on your neck, or behind your ears—

David Averbach:                  And we saw a lot of those, too.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Sure, but the true wireless ones, they're basically just two little ear things that are wirelessly connected to each other and your phone. So you don't have to worry about any wires at all.

Conner Carey:                       Which is awesome.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 You know, sometimes I feel like I look a little bit like Frankenstein, the monster, when I'm wearing mine, but I love them so much.

David Averbach:                  Okay, so a couple other thoughts I had on the show. First of all, I mentioned wireless ear buds. I saw a lot of connected home stuff. And we've been seeing it for a while, but this year it felt like this was stuff that was actually coming to market and starting to come to fruition.

                                                      LG, for example, had a refrigerator that had cameras in it. And you could, from the store check to see what was in your fridge. It would keep track of ... When you had stuff in your fridge, it would keep track of when the milk's going to go bad, and it could—

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Oh, my goodness.

Donna Cleveland:               But does that mean you have to scan it into your—?

David Averbach:                  You have to enter it in. And it seemed impractical, but some of CES stuff is impractical now, but it's—

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, eventually.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, eventually it becomes more practical. But in general, the connected home still actually, to be honest, a lot of it looks impractical for now. But it's coming much closer to reality. What LG was specializing in was they had a refrigerator that talked to your stove, that talked to your dishwasher. So the refrigerator could tell you what you had in your fridge, and suggest a recipe, which would then pre-heat the oven, which would then ... do something with the dishwasher, which I didn't really understand. But it's happening, people.

                                                      The other thing we talked about right before we started this, one thing that's always interesting to see what's missing from the show. And what I thought was missing was VR.

Conner Carey:                       You're right.

David Averbach:                  There was almost no innovations on VR. And, to be fair, Oculus didn't attend. So there is innovation in the industry that isn't happening at the show. But it doesn't seem to be the kind of world-beater, next-level product yet, that people have speculated it would become.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 You're right.

Donna Cleveland:               And even with AR, the main way I noticed it being used was the vendors themselves were using it so that customers could get a better picture of their products.

David Averbach:                  Which was stupid. I hated that. Sorry.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah.

                                                      I can see, as a marketing person, why that would be so exciting to you. But, as a consumer, I was just like, "I don't care."

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, like you would hold your camera view-finder up to a case case and then it would start showing you how the phone was put together, the ingredients in it and stuff like ... Not ingredients, the elements.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 The components.

Conner Carey:                       The components, yeah. And that was, I agree, not that exciting for the average person but ...

David Averbach:                  All right, so let's move on to our award winners, but first, let's tell you about our second sponsor.

Donna Cleveland:               FullContact, yeah.

                                                      So, I recently was upgraded to the full membership and the thing that I've noticed right away ... and I've just been using it in place of my regular contacts app ... is it has a section where you can get rid of all duplicates. It will merge your duplicate contacts together in a way that's really effortless and do it all in one step. You can merge duplicates in the regular contacts app, but you have to go in one at a time and do it.

Conner Carey:                       It's such a pain.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Actually, it's not a true merging. They link them.

Donna Cleveland:               They link them, yeah. It's lame.

David Averbach:                  Really? The iPhone contacts app is terrible. So FullContact is a really good alternative.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, and the other thing that it does is it checks all these people's social media, like LinkedIn, and Facebook, and all of that, so you can go in and update information for people. And so if they've changed jobs, or moved ... Well, no, it doesn't have addresses, but even also the photo associated with that will all update.

                                                      And it's funny, with the photos, I've noticed in the past, I'll have someone's 10-year-old Facebook picture with their contact. So those two features were ones that I really liked.

David Averbach:                  And can I tell you what feature I'm really appreciating, while at this show?

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah.

David Averbach:                  For free, they will input cards. So, if you get a business card, you can just scan it with their app and they have a real person checking to make sure that that scan was accurate, and then they input it into your phone. And they do it all for free.

                                                      So, I'm going to test the limits of this, because I literally have a couple hundred cards sitting there. And they're probably the limit to the free-ness of this, but it's an amazing feature for when you're doing any type of networking event.

Conner Carey:                       And now, let's move into our award winners.

David Averbach:                  Okay.

Conner Carey:                       We'll tell you about 15 of our favorites this in this episode. You'll see the full list if you go to iPhoneLife.com/Podcast

                                                      So, let's see. First on our list, we have Scosche with their MagicMounts. And we gave them an award for their whole MagicMount line. Because they've created wireless charging stands, basically for any situation that you could possibly want a stand for. So, whether that's in your home or office, they have car mounts, and they also have ... Well, no, their car mounts they had a few different options. Ones that would go one the dash, ones that would go in your console, like you could put it in an older car. And how it works is you need to either have a case or a little magnet that you put on the back of your phone so that it sticks to it, because it is at an angle where your phone would fall off otherwise. But it uses Qi wireless charging for all of them. And they just have a really solid product lineup. And we thought ... There are a lot of wireless chargers at the show, and they had some of the best.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 It was very thorough.

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               Like every possible situation in which you might need a mount that charges, Scosche had it.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah.

David Averbach:                  And can I tell you really what kind of pushed them over the edge, for me, to be an award winner? Was the case. So they partnered with Speck on the Presidio case, which is a case we've always loved in the office, and they added the magnetic plate built into the case. Because, to me, this was always the downside of the MagicMount system. It's really awesome to be able to not only wirelessly charge, but to be able to mount your phone at home, or especially in the car, but then you had to have a plate that you glued onto your case, or had to just deal with. And now it's built into the case, and it's built into a very solid case that I would have used anyway.

Conner Carey:                       Oh, yeah. A case I'm using right now.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, well, there you go.

Donna Cleveland:               The reason we really like the Speck Presidio line in particular is because it's a very protective case that looks great. It's not bulky, it doesn't scream like, "I'm a rugged case that you should probably go climb a mountain with." Which is a legitimate kind of case, but not one that you use day-to-day. This one just looks good, but is also very protective, and now extremely convenient for wireless charging.

David Averbach:                  I do think we should pause and have that awkward conversation about editorial versus advertising, because Scosche is one of our sponsors. So they do pay us to do sponsored content for them, and they do pay us to promote their products in podcasts and things like that. We have a very church and state policy with editorial and advertising. Meaning we never promise or do any form of content for somebody in exchange for money, with the exception of it being very clearly labeled as a sponsor. Sometimes though, the people who sponsor our shows also have great products that we do cover. And this is one of those cases, where some of our sponsors are award winners, but we are very clear to have that church and state line. But we like to have full disclosure as one more step for you guys.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, because we don't want to exclude products that do advertise with us just because they advertise with us. That also wouldn't be fair.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, especially because we go out of our way to work with people in the advertising space who we also love their products. So it's always a weird line, but we want to make sure you know that nobody ever pays for content unless it's clearly labeled that they did so.

Conner Carey:                       Sponsor content.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Exactly.

Donna Cleveland:               So, moving on, we have a product from [Fuse]Chicken. Who wants to talk about that?

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I can talk about that.

                                                      I don't feel that there's a huge amount of, at this point, new things that you can really do with a lightning cable, but [Fuse]Chicken is really great at making really rugged lightning cables. And, if you've ever seen them, they're kind of these bendy metal things. They have other things, but that's kind of the thing they're known for is these sort of bendy metal lightning cables—

David Averbach:                  And what's cool about their normal bendy metal cables is they're stiff enough to be used as a stand as well. So you can kind of curl them into shapes that you can have standing up on your desk ... sort of a thing.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Right.

                                                      But sometimes that's really inconvenient. So I really like their new product, which is called Shield, and it's a lightning cable that's protected by chain-mail, which sounds gimmicky, but its actually awesome. Because its very protective and super-flexible, so if you're in a situation where having this thing that is really handy on your desk to use to put your phone in different positions, but sometimes you want a cable that's more flexible, but also still very rugged and will also stand up to all the abuse you put it to. This one will do it.

David Averbach:                  I agree with you that, when you told me you had a chain-mail lightning cable, thought it was a gimmick and I rolled by eyes, but then when I saw it, it was actually really cool because first of all, we all know Apple makes terrible lightning cables that always fall apart, so you need a third-party cable that's more rugged. Most of them are made with nylon. This was really solid, yet still light, and felt very flexible like a cable should.

Conner Carey:                       That's awesome.

Donna Cleveland:               Next.

                                                      Libratone is another company. They make really high-quality speakers and headphones—

Conner Carey:                       I love them.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah. A few of us have Libratone speakers in our house that we reviewed over the years, and we were really impressed with their booth this year, so we gave them two awards. One is for the—

Conner Carey:                       Free upgrade.

Donna Cleveland:               Yes, free software update.

David Averbach:                  Speaking of Alexa taking over the world.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah. So now Libratone speakers are Alexa compatible.

Conner Carey:                       And I think the distinction is if you already own a Libratone zip speaker, here in the next, I think, month or so—

David Averbach:                  February. February.

Conner Carey:                       February. They're going to give you a free software update to include Alexa.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, because a lot of the speakers we saw that did include Alexa, it was only the most recent ... You had to buy the new one in order to get Alexa.

David Averbach:                  Now, and if you guys listen to the podcast you know I live the Libratone ZIPPs. I have them in my kitchen. I use them all the time and so I'm really excited about it. One distinction though is it doesn't have the, "Hey, Alexa" feature, because there's no mics built into it, so you have to double-tap on the top of the speaker to use it. Which is still very functional, very useful, and really awesome that they're giving it for free to existing customers, which we loved. But they are coming out with a ZIPP that does have a mic built in so that you can do the, "Hey, Alexa" stuff. Which is really nice, because then it's hands-free.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah.

                                                      So the other product that they came out with that we gave an award to is the TRACK+ and these are wireless, in-ear headphones. They're not true wireless, like Sarah just explained before, because they do have something that sits on your neck, but they were amazing. You really had to try them on. This is one of the booths where they want to have you listen because they have such amazing audio that you really have to experience it. And you're usually really impressed.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 This was my favorite product in our iOS hall. It was my absolute favorite. It had adjustable noise cancellation—

David Averbach:                  That was the big one. It was A, noise canceling, which I don't think I saw from any other wireless. And B, it auto-adjusted it, which I don't see very often and was impressed by.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 The band. You know these bands that they put to secure these two earbuds, a lot of the time they're thick, and plastic, and they're really uncomfortable.

Donna Cleveland:               It's where they put the battery usually, so it's big and chunky.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Exactly, and theirs was so light and so perfectly supple. It was amazing. I was so impressed.

Donna Cleveland:               They felt really good in your ears.

Conner Carey:                       And it had an eight hour battery, which is really good for earbuds of that type. Usually, it's six would be considered pretty good. And, I guess, the noise canceling that usually they would have to make it a lot bigger. They were explaining that to us, you have to make the connecting part bigger and usually inflexible to get that kind of battery and the noise canceling all into that.

                                                      So, yes, Libratone was definitely on our favorites list.

David Averbach:                  As usual.

                                                      They're a Scandinavian company, and they're known for their Scandinavian design. And they're just really well-designed, sleek-looking products. Yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah.

                                                      Polaroid. I really liked their product this year, which is the Polaroid Pop Wifi camera. And so this is something ... I've long loved Polaroids. I think they're a really fun thing, like at a party, or with friends, to take a picture and then be able to see it right there.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I feel like every party I go to that you're involved with, I generally get a Polaroid picture of me taken. She's always had this going.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, and so but the trade-off with Polaroid is that it sucks to not have a digital version of that. A lot of times a Polaroid, I'll literally take a picture of it with my iPhone, but there's usually some glare and it's not that high-quality. So this, it both prints something out immediately when you take a picture with the Polaroid Pop, but then it also keeps a digital copy and if you're connected to the same Wifi network, on the camera as well as on your iPhone, you can just open up the app on your iPhone, and all the pictures are there. And you can also customize what the framing looks like, and write on it and stuff like that. That I probably wouldn't do that much, but it's a fun feature for some people.

David Averbach:                  I think one of the signs of a good product is when you hear about it, it seems so obvious that you're kind of annoyed that it hadn't existed already. And that's how I feel about this. It's like, "Of course they should do that. Of course that's what I want in my life." You know what I mean?

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, I agree.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Yeah, I really want one.

Donna Cleveland:               Next up we have the Jabra 65t elites. I feel like David or Sarah should talk about this, because they both love Jabra.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, I think Sarah's their biggest advocate, maybe in the world. So you can tell it.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I have the previous iteration of the Jabra elite-

David Averbach:                  Elite sport.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Elite sport, right. And I use those almost daily to work out and they're really comfortable and they stay in my ears and every one of my workout buddies are jealous, and so this is the new iteration. But also, those are pretty expensive earbuds and not everyone needs the sport aspect. There's certain features like the heart rate monitor that not everyone uses, because a lot of us also have fitness trackers. And so Jabra created ones that have better mics for day-to-day use that aren't necessarily for working out, and then there's a sport version that doesn't have the heart rate monitor. But they still are the same awesome earbuds.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. I think what we loved about Jabra, because I also use them when I work out, too, and I love them, is that they're very light and they're very reliable. A lot of the problems with the truly wireless earbuds is that they tend to have connectivity issues whereas these didn't. But I agree with you, that I didn't care at all about the heart rate monitor, because I have my Apple Watch. Or they had a few other sensors that I really didn't care about. And so I, if I were a consumer who were buying this, would not have wanted to pay the $220 that it cost me to get all those extra features. So they came out with two. The NowStart, I think, it's around $150. So significantly cheaper, still have all the great things I loved about it. They're actually even lighter and have a better mic. And they have one version that's I think, maybe $180, that has a sweat-proof ... that's still sport, but doesn't have ... I'm not paying extra for the features I didn't car about. So it's really rounding out their line for a product we already loved.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah. I think that was a theme, too. Now I'm thinking about it. A lot of companies wanting to have a product for every possible type of person in every different situation, so—

David Averbach:                  And sometimes that's annoying to me, but with Jabra, I was happy.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Well, I appreciate it with the earbuds and headphones because a lot of them are really expensive and—

Donna Cleveland:               It's a big investment.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Right. And so it's great that these companies are really doing their best to try and balance the price with high-quality audio so ... Because it makes a huge difference. Like, the Apple AirPods are ... they're not that great, and so it's nice to be able to switch that out with an affordable but good pair of headphones.

Donna Cleveland:               This is a good segue into our next product, the Catalyst AirPod case.

                                                      I have to put in a little word of defense for the AirPods.

David Averbach:                  I was waiting for Donna to get defensive.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 To be honest, I actually should have said Earbuds. The AirBuds ...

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, it's true—

David Averbach:                  All right, Donna, tell us how much you love them.

Donna Cleveland:               The Earpods that come with the iPhone are not that great, it's true.

David Averbach:                  I actually love them.

Donna Cleveland:               Okay. They're not terrible, but they're not great. I have the AirPods and I really enjoy how seamlessly they connect to your phone. I like that you can use Find My iPhone to keep track of them. So they have some great features. I don't think they're the best audio ever, and I think that the wireless technology still ... Yeah, I've noticed some issues with the wireless quality for different types of music that I've listened to. But overall, I do love them. But they are hard to keep track of. Hence, Catalyst came out with and an AirPod case that Conner wants to tell us about.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, if you have AirPods, I feel like you just have to get this case. It's made of silicone and it hugs your AirPod case. And I think it's brilliant because it's waterproof for up to a meter, or 3.3 feet. Drop-proof up to four feet. And it's snug, so you don't want to have to take it off, and they designed it so that you never have to. You just fold the flap down, and then you can get access to your AirPods. Or, at the bottom, there's a little port access, so you can charge it. And it has an included carabiner, so you clip it onto something and not worry about where your AirPods case is.

David Averbach:                  Can I tell you what feature I actually really loved about it? That they have a glow-in-the-dark version.

Conner Carey:                       Yes.

David Averbach:                  It sounds like ... 90% of the time, glow-in-the-dark just is a gimmick and annoys me, but in this case, I'm always looking for the little headphones on the bottom of my backpack, and if they glowed in the dark, I think I'd find them easier.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah. I actually have a confession to make. I'm not 100% sure where my AirPods are right now.

Conner Carey:                       So, see? You need the case.

Donna Cleveland:               I know.

David Averbach:                  If only they glowed in the dark, Donna.

Donna Cleveland:               If only I had this Catalyst case in advance. Because it is ... Apple always makes things really beautiful, it's this white case that's really slippery, so it slips out of your hand and it's tiny.

David Averbach:                  Beautiful like dental floss.

Donna Cleveland:               It looks like a little floss container. It's really true. So, I could really use one of these. I'm still convinced that it's somewhere in my house or at work.

David Averbach:                  You can, total side-note, you can make the case beep, right? To find it?

Donna Cleveland:               Well, it's out of battery. So ...

David Averbach:                  Oh, no.

Donna Cleveland:               So, no. And, apparently, I thought it was going to show you your last known location, but it wasn't in the Find My iPhone app, so ...

                                                      Anyways, moving on to Belkin. Belkin is another company that we gave to a line of products.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Yes, it's their BOOSTUP wireless charging line.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, I feel like, Sarah, you were a big fan.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I am a big fan, because ... Especially when a new type of product comes out ... Wireless charging has been around for a while, but now it's a thing and so a lot of people are coming out with them. But often just making it work takes priority over the design. Belkin already is great with charging, and they also are great with making things look good. And they really do a good job combining that. There's the Belkin BOOSTUP wireless charging pad that you may have seen if you watched the Apple iPhone announcement, last of all.

David Averbach:                  They were very early in the wireless charging space.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 But they also have a dual charging pad so you could charge two devices, or ... and this is really cool, you can charge and iPhone and an Android device. So if someone in your life is just clueless and using Android instead of iPhone, you guys can charge together.

Donna Cleveland:               And the impressive thing, to me, about the line is that ... They were explaining, up to 10 watts charging doesn't generally mean that everything in between is taken care of. And what Belkin did that I didn't hear anybody else talk about, is they had it where it detected which device you were putting onto the charging pad, so that it would provide the wattage that device required.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, so a lot of Android phones charge at 9 watts. The iPhone 10 charges at 7.5 watts and it makes a difference. And so detecting which one, and charging that, and being able to support both is really nice. I think Belkin is one of those companies, to me, as an example of what we were talking about earlier, where we saw so many wireless chargers, and it's really hard when you're just looking online to tell the difference, but when you're here you can tell who had the passion. You could tell who lovingly crafted it, who thought out the product really well, and who's just jumping on the bandwagon with a cheap product.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Right. And these look great. So, in addition to the dual ones, there's one that's a stand, and there's more charging pads that look really nice. And so basically, you can have an awesome charging experience while also having something that looks good in your home or office. And so that's why we chose the BOOSTUP line.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, I really noticed, at the head of the show, online everyone's just talking about Belkin's original wireless charger, and Mophie, I feel like were the big ones people were recommending for iPhone users. And they're just really plain. They're fine, like white and black ones. And these definitely make it like it will be a nice part of any setting.

                                                      Next up we have LifeProof with their Aquaponic speaker. Conner, you were a big advocate for this one.

Conner Carey:                       This was my pick, yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, tell us about it.

Conner Carey:                       I love LifeProof because ... The name says it all. It's LifeProof. And these speakers are the same, it's like dirt-proof, snow-proof, water-proof, dust-proof. And what's unique about the line to me is there's one for everybody. You have the AQ9, AQ10, and AQ11. And the 9 is like the ... with a built-in carabiner, you clip it on, you're good to go—

Sarah Kingsbury:                 It's like the size of ... if you're old enough tho remember this, it's the size of a Walkman, basically.

Conner Carey:                       Exactly.

                                                      And AQ10 is the mid-range, and it has a built-in storage at the bottom of it so you can put your credit cards, and your keys, and also keep those dry and safe. They all float. The AQ10 has an even larger built-in dry box so that you can put your phone in there, too.

                                                      So it's just if you are the type of person that's going to be at a party or outside hiking, there is an Aquaphonic speaker that's going to fit whatever outdoor activity with music that you need.

Donna Cleveland:               That was an awesome description, thanks.

                                                      iDevices, they're another company that had a cool product that David wants to tell us about.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, well, I alluded to them a little bit earlier as the product that has Alexa built-in. So basically one of the trends we saw was a ton of smart home products. And they just, to me, stood out as doing it really well. They have a whole line of smart home products, but the thing that really stood out was they had built-in Alexa into some products that I didn't see elsewhere.

                                                      So they had a smart light switch that had Alexa built directly into it. Because one of the things that's annoying about smart home products, I have some in my home, and I have to ... I have a space hater, and when I want to turn it on, I have to take out my phone and I have to open up HomeKit and turn it on, or I can, with Siri, turn it on but that takes several steps. When you just want to turn on a stupid heater. And, if somebody else is in your home who wants to turn on that heater, it's even more complicated. With this, because it's built-in, anybody in the room can just say, "turn on the space heater," and it'll just turn it on. Well, in this case, it'll be, "turn on the light," but you get the idea. It's just being able to use your voice and have that built in and removing the phone from that interaction really makes a big difference, so I thought that was really exciting.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I agree, yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               I have to mention the Ember Cup.

David Averbach:                  Yes.

Donna Cleveland:               That's a product that I picked out. Ember has has a to-go mug for a while, and now they have a really nice porcelain coffee cup. Or, it's not a coffee cup. Really the whole point of the product is that you can put any hot liquid in it, and through their app on the iPhone, you can tell it what it is ... whether it's a certain kind of tea, or coffee, and set it at the temperature you want and it will keep it that way.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 That's so cool.

Donna Cleveland:               I know. We're all big coffee-lovers here. And I do, at the office, my coffee gets cold a lot and I hate that. So, keeping it nice and toasty for me, I'm definitely going to be asking for a review unit of that to test out back home.

David Averbach:                  I feel like CES is the ultimate solutions for first-world problems.

Donna Cleveland:               I know.

David Averbach:                  Don't you hate it when your coffee gets cold?

Donna Cleveland:               I know.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Our lives are so hard.

Donna Cleveland:               Speaking of which, Sarah, you were a big fan of this smart cycling helmet, that also seems like a first-world product.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Yeah, a lot of people like to listen to music or make calls on their phone or whatever when they're cycling and that's kind of dangerous. Even more than running with earbuds in, which, I confess, I do all the time.

Donna Cleveland:               I fell off my bike once trying to do something on my iPhone. Yeah.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 So—

Conner Carey:                       As David dies laughing.

Donna Cleveland:               Because he's like, "Of corse she did."

David Averbach:                  No. Yes. Also, I'm just laughing that this episode just turned into confessions, by Donna.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 All right, do you guys want to hear about this, or?

David Averbach:                  Yes.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 So, it has this technology ... I know it's been around for a while, but it's often used in hearing aid situations, because it's through vibration through your bones in your skull that you can hear the sound.

David Averbach:                  Which is way less creepy than it sounds. It's actually totally normal.

Donna Cleveland:               I feel like all of us had got a disturbed look on our face as she described it.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 I described it badly. The actual name of bone-conductive audio—

David Averbach:                  No, yeah it definitely ... even the real names creep me out, but when you use it, it just feels like you're listening to music from a weird location.

Conner Carey:                       It works so well.

David Averbach:                  Yeah, it works.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 But it leaves your ears completely free to really hear your surroundings and also you don't have to take your hands off the handlebar to mess with different things. There's an actual remote that clips on your handlebars so you can turn on the safety lights on the helmet, you can take calls, and make calls, and change your music without ... because that's just so dangerous, messing with things.

Donna Cleveland:               You're making me want one.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 And it's also just a really good bike helmet because, let's be honest, that's really important.

David Averbach:                  Protect our head gear.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 So I thought it was a great products that a lot of people would find really useful.

Donna Cleveland:               And it was called the Coros OMNI. Sorry I didn't share the name with you guys.

David Averbach:                  Also, by the way, we are going to write a full roundup of all of these products, so if you're listening along at home, first of all, a lot of them aren't out yet. So sometimes these are products coming out in 2018—

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Well, actually this one—

David Averbach:                  This one is?

Sarah Kingsbury:                 If you order it today, you can get a huge discount. There's a discount going on through Friday the 12th, so especially if you're part of a cycling club, get on that. On Indiegogo, but otherwise, we'll be publishing our writeup next week and you're out of luck. Sorry.

David Averbach:                  Yeah.

Donna Cleveland:               So, Zagg has a screen protector that we all thought of David as soon as we heard about it. Because it's the Zagg invisible shield and it has a screen protector for both the front and back of your iPhone.

David Averbach:                  Yes.

Donna Cleveland:               And so David, for so long has hated using a case and just refused to until his phone shattered.

David Averbach:                  Until I shattered it several times within a month. And then I gave up.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, so this one, I'm really excited because I think, ... Well, I'm sure you're going to use it, right, David?

David Averbach:                  You know, to be honest, I'm not sure that I ... I've just been a little bit traumatized.

Conner Carey:                       I'll probably take the plunge anyway. Yeah.

David Averbach:                  Because I do ... For years, I went without a case and I loved it. I loved every minute of it. And basically—

Conner Carey:                       You're older and wiser now.

David Averbach:                  -I had a glass screen protector. I'm seasoned. I had a glass screen protector on the front and the back of my phone was metal and so, if I dropped it, I'd get a couple scratches sometimes on the back, but my front screen was protected by that screen protector. And I'm somebody, as you can tell by my confessions with breaking my phone, I drop my phone a lot. More than average, wouldn't you guys say?

Donna Cleveland:               Probably.

David Averbach:                  And so, it works well. And so this has a glass screen protector on the front, but also it has a protection for the back. Was it glass? Or was it something else?

Donna Cleveland:               Yes.

Conner Carey:                       I think it is glass, but the key is that it's 360, so you're edges are protected and the edges are reinforced to ensure that if it hits a corner it doesn't just go—

David Averbach:                  Yeah, exactly.

                                                      And so I am pretty tempted to give it a shot. I'll wait and see if Conner breaks her phone.

Conner Carey:                       Thanks.

David Averbach:                  For the iPhone 10 with the glass back, I've been using the case. And this is a solution for an iPhone 10 that does protect it. The other thing that makes me a little nervous is the screens are so much more expensive now. But still really awesome to have a solution that isn't a case.

Conner Carey:                       I agree.

Donna Cleveland:               All right, two more products to cover for you guys. We have the Remo+ DoorCam, which Sarah and I both thought was really cool because we've had a lot of smart home products sent to us that really require getting professionals to your house, helping you stitch things like doorknobs out, light switches, and all this stuff that's ... It's a big pain in the ass, basically. And this you just set over your door and it's a security camera, so all you have to do is literally place it over your door. And I am excited to see a product as easy to use as that. And I'm hoping that more will be coming out on the market. Because I want a smart home, but I don't want to have to put in that much work.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 It's not actually that hard to install a lock or a door knob, as long as you can use the existing holes and stuff that are there.

David Averbach:                  Still a cool product, Sarah. Still a cool product.

Donna Cleveland:               Yeah, Sarah, I was pretty sure you picked this one out with me. But—

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Oh, I definitely did.

Donna Cleveland:               —hard is relative.

Conner Carey:                       Well, and if you live in an apartment, instead of owning a home, you can't do a lot of the things.

Donna Cleveland:               That's true.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 That was a big thing that I liked about it.

Donna Cleveland:               The last product I'll let you guys talk about because I didn't get to see it, but it was the blood pressure smart watch.

Conner Carey:                       Omron.

David Averbach:                  It was impressive.

Conner Carey:                       It was very impressive because, first of all, they're certified by the FDA, so it was very accurate.

David Averbach:                  And they've been in the blood pressure ... They have blood pressure cuffs for, I think they said, 30 years. So they're really experts in this.

Conner Carey:                       And it's a smart watch, as well. So it's not just a blood pressure monitor. It looks elegant.

David Averbach:                  Yeah. It's not as sleek as an Apple Watch, but it's still surprisingly sleek, given that it's also a blood pressure monitor.

Conner Carey:                       Yeah, you don't look at it and go, "Oh, that's a medical device." You just go, "Oh, they have a smart watch." Which, I feel like, if you're someone who needs to monitor your blood pressure on a regular, daily basis, you don't want to walk around with some chunky thing that's clearly a medical device. You want to just feel good about what you're wearing.

David Averbach:                  And you also, most importantly, want to be able to measure your blood pressure throughout the day and you don't want to have to carry around a blood pressure cuff with you.

Conner Carey:                       And it has to be accurate.

David Averbach:                  And it has to be accurate. And this is all of the above. It's FDA certified, from a really reputable company, and it also functions as a smart watch. So, we were very impressed by that.

Donna Cleveland:               I think, lastly, we just want to give a question of the week. Which would be, which of the products named are you most excited about? So email podcasts@iPhoneLife.com and let us know which of the products we mentioned for our awards you think is the coolest, and that you might be interested in buying.

David Averbach:                  Or if we missed any. I'm sure a lot of you guys are following the CES coverage and seeing all of the products. Of course, we're very focused on the iPhone space, but any products that we missed that are particularly exciting to you, let us know. podcasts@iPhoneLife.com.

Donna Cleveland:               Thanks, guys.

Conner Carey:                       Thanks.

Sarah Kingsbury:                 Thanks, everyone.

David Averbach:                  Thanks, everyone.

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Sarah Kingsbury

As the Editorial Director at iPhone Life, Sarah Kingsbury manages the online editorial team and oversees all website content. She is a long-time Apple enthusiast who never goes anywhere without her Apple Watch and owns way too many HomePods. Since joining iPhone Life in 2013, Sarah has done everything from writing hundreds of how-to articles to founding the Daily Tip newsletter. She even co-hosted the early episodes of the iPhone Life Podcast. When not at work, Sarah can be found hiking in the mountains and canyons around Las Vegas, where she lives with her partner and dogs.